Broken Wings
by Goblin Cat KC
Summary: repost; Sarah finds a white owl with a broken wing lying in her rose bush. COMPLETE
1. Trips Taken

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Broken Wings

By KC

Disclaimer: I do not own Labyrinth nor any of its characters (except my original villain here). 

~*~ 

Sarah brushed her hair from her face, quickly gathering it all in her hands and tying it back before the wind could whip it up again. Ever since she had moved out into her own small home, she'd let her hair grow out almost down to her waist, and while she loved the extra length, it could get in the way of her gardening.

She took her sunglasses off as she sat down on the grass, setting them next to herself. The sun was already slipping behind the horizon, covering the rose bushes in shadow. The large blossoms were starting to close up, but that made it easier to reach the thin vines that were sneaking into the bushes, strangling them.

"Ow!" she jerked her hand back, wincing at the cut in her finger. "Damn thorns." She shook her hand for a moment, then started pulling the weeds again. Deeper through the leaves she could spot the roots of one of the longer vines, so she delved further in, gingerly extending her entire arm amongst the thorns. Her fingers touched the cool dirt, and she started to feel her way to the weeds. Halfway there, she brushed against something soft and warm. Feathers.

__

A bird? Do I pull it out? she wondered. _If I grab it, it might peck me, but if it's dead..._"All right, whatever you are, time to come out!" Being as gentle as she could, she pushed her hand up underneath it and slowly raised it up out of the thorns. Finally she could see what she had rescued: a snowy white owl, with splashes of blood on its perfect feathers.

"Oh, you poor thing," she whispered, softly gathering the owl up into her arms. "You must have got caught in the thorns." The small bird was obviously in no shape to fly, so she got up and took it inside, laying it on the couch. She could barely see its body rise and fall with each breath.

"Now you just wait here," she said, "and I'll get a box for you to sleep in." Sarah hurried to the garage and grabbed a large cardboard box and several rags, then started back. 

When she reached the living room again, though, she froze. The box dropped to the floor.

The owl was gone, and in its place lay a very familiar man. The clothing was less elaborate than she would have expected, but it was him.

"Jareth," she whispered inaudibly. Her first thought was to dash to the kitchen and get a knife, a pan, anything to defend herself. She couldn't make her legs move.

Seconds ticked by, and as her adrenaline surge died down, Sarah realized that Jareth wasn't doing anything but laying there. In fact, it looked like he was asleep. She crept closer, avoiding the creaky spots in her floor, until she was standing right over him.

The feathers had disappeared, but the blood was still there, only now she could see that the scratches and cuts were still bleeding. They were all over his body, most of them fairly minor, but the worst ones were around his eyes. It almost looked as if someone had tried to claw his eyes out.

Sarah put her hand out, hovering it over the marks. They fit her fingers exactly. Someone with very sharp nails had done this to him.

Jareth turned in his sleep, groaning slightly with the effort, and as he did her fingertips lightly brushed his forehead. She winced in sympathy, he was burning up with what felt like a terrible fever.

Sarah felt torn. Her brother, Toby, would be a goblin now if Jareth had succeeded against her so long ago.

__

So long ago? Geez, Sarah, it was only a couple years back, just before you graduated school.

She sighed and glanced back down at him again. Should she? On one hand he'd tried to take Toby away, but then he was completely helpless now. He'd tried to hurt her and he'd threatened her friends...but then he'd given Toby back when she'd won. No cheap parting shot, no vindictive twist, he'd even left the doorway between the worlds open so her friends could visit. He hadn't been evil or vindictive. He'd...he'd even seemed sad.

No other choice, she went to her bathroom and soaked a washcloth in cold water, then came back and pressed it against his forehead. Jareth groaned again, but he didn't wake up. Sarah pulled the afghan off her other sofa and spread it over him, making sure he'd be warm. By now the bleeding had stopped, so she just dabbed away the excess blood to make sure the wounds were clean.

"Wh...where...am I?"

The faint whisper startled her, and she glanced down at his face. His eyes fluttered a bit, and he struggled to get his left arm back to raise himself. Before she could stop herself, she put her hand on his chest and pushed him firmly back down. 

"You're safe," she said first, trying to calm him down. "You're in my home."

"What..." his eyes focused on her, and it took a moment for him to recognize her. "Sarah? How...this..." he turned his face away from the ceiling light, apparently too bright for him. 

She left the cloth on his forehead, rising up to turn off the lights, and he sighed in relief. His eyes closed before he could ask her anything, and he was again fast asleep. Sarah looked around the living room, hoping to find someone kind of helpful message written on the walls telling her what to do, but of course all she saw was her faded white paint. It was simply amazing how life could change within five minutes.

Sarah stared out the window for a moment, and her eyes widened as she remembered how late it was. Supernatural former enemy or no, this was not a neighborhood to leave one's door unlocked at night. She rushed back outside and snatched up her discarded sunglasses, then came back inside and bolted the door shut. The kitchen door was locked, and every window was closed and the curtains drawn. As she was coming back to the living room, the phone rang. She picked it up before it rang again, so it wouldn't disturb Jareth.

"Hello?"

"Huh huh huh huh...what're you wearing?"

"Oh, for the love of--not tonight, you sick pervert! One night, just one freakin' night, leave me alone! Can you manage that, hmm? Can your pathetic, twisted little mind grasp this concept? One night? Just go away into your diseased world and leave me--hello?" With a shrug she hung up. The last time she'd done that, he hadn't called for a month. It was kind of an ego boost, being able to frighten him off like that.

"Some...things...n-never change...it seems," came the low chuckle from the couch.

She looked down the hallway at him. Jareth was up on one arm, watching her with a wry smile. He'd slid the afghan back so it was partially behind him. Now that he was halfway up, she could see his clothing even more distinctly. His shirt was awfully simple compared to what she remembered him wearing before. It was nowhere near the ornate designs he usually dressed in. The entire thing was loose and the sleeves ended well-over his hands while the shirt hung an inch above his hips, and it was an off-white color with several small tears and blood stains on it. His pants were a little more in character, black and skin-tight, but they were also torn and blood-spattered. He was wearing boots, but they were obviously dusty and worn from use. And his hair! Years ago, it had been perfectly brushed and styled, but now it was matted in some areas, tangled in others, as if he had been living out in the open for several days.

"Do I look that terrible?" he whispered, glancing away.

"Like you've been running from something for a long time," she admitted, walking back over to him. "What happened to you?"

Jareth gave a short, bitter laugh. "Just a little sibling rivalry," he growled under his breath. "Nothing you should get mixed in." He forced himself to sit up further, but Sarah noticed the wince he tried to hide. She also noticed he was favoring his right arm. Without hesitating, she grabbed his left wrist and yanked it out from under him, and robbed of his only support, he started to fall backwards. He shut his eyes, expecting the jarring pain of knocking his head against the couch arm, but Sarah had put her other arm out to catch him, and she gently lowered him back onto the couch.

"You shouldn't get up yet," she said sternly. "You've got a fever, and what's wrong with your arm?" She reached over and softly set her hand on it. 

Jareth couldn't hold in his cry of pain, and he pressed himself against the back of the couch, trying to shield his arm from her. "It's broken, damn it, are you happy now?"

Not answering, she put a pillow under his head and pulled the afghan back over him, then started to dab at his face with the cold cloth again.

"Look, Sarah, I appreciate your concern, but I am not an invalid to be nursed back to health!" he said too loudly. 

"You appreciate my concern?" she raised one eyebrow at that. "Whatever happened to you must have been drastic, you'd have never lowered yourself low enough to actually thank someone before."

He didn't reply.

"Well, whatever happened, you shouldn't try to leave tonight. It's dark, and you wouldn't stand much of a chance out here in your condition." Not waiting to hear his response, she got up and went to the living room door, which she partially closed. "Um, your goblins aren't gonna pop in here suddenly, are they?"

He shook his head slightly. "Don't worry, no chance of that happening."

There was a catch in his voice, but he was too close to sleep again to ask him anything. She left the door half-closed and left the hall light on as she went into her bedroom.

__

I can take a shower tomorrow morning, she told herself, _when he's still asleep._ She changed into her night shirt and shorts and climbed into the bed, but she didn't fall asleep for a long time. Every few minutes she would glance her alarm clock, watching the red numbers tick by. Half an hour later and no closer to sleep, she got up and tip-toed to the door, looking in on her guest.

Jareth was still on the couch, already fast asleep, his left arm dangling from under the afghan and his right arm perched delicately on his stomach. Once in awhile his head would turn to the side, or he would mumble something. She caught the words "castle, riddle and heart" over and over, but the rest was incoherent. It seemed like he has trapped in a nightmare, and his distress was becoming worse as time went on. Against her better judgement, she snuck back into the living room, pulled the footstool next to the couch and sat down. 

Once she was comfortable, she slipped her hand into his, gently covering it with her other hand. Almost immediately his body relaxed, and his breathing slowed back down to a normal pace.

__

Jareth, what on earth did this to you? she wondered. _What was so damn strong you had to run?_ An unwelcome thought entered her head. What was happening to her friends right now? They were back with something the Goblin King himself had fled from. She nodded to herself. Whatever it took, she was going to get the answer out of him the next day. 

~*~*~*~

Sarah woke up in the morning, still sitting against the couch. She opened her eyes and pushed her hair back, expecting to see her guest asleep next to her, but instead she found herself alone in an empty room. She stood up quickly, searching around the house, looking for either blood or goblins, but there was nothing. She checked the front door and found it locked, and all of the windows were still shut. With a muffled groan she went to her backdoor and found it slightly ajar.

When she opened it and went out, however, she sighed in relief. Jareth was standing outside in her backyard, staring out over the city. Her house was situated just right on a small hill, so that half of the city was spread out in a nice view. She quietly stepped out and joined him, noticing that he'd somehow managed to bandage and splint his arm, and put it up in a sling. 

"You all right?" she asked slowly.

He nodded. "Your world...is very strange..."

"Some would say yours is stranger," she smiled.

"Perhaps, but it does not change. Every time I am here, it seems that everything has altered somehow. My world is fairly static, without variation. Your world seems to...thrive...on change."

"Were you getting bored?"

He laughed bitterly. "If only that were the problem...No, Sarah. I am unused to change. I had thought you could bring that to my kingdom. That was the real reason I took your brother. I thought if I could keep him, I could keep you."

She looked away at the flower garden. "Is that the only reason you wanted me there?"

Jareth smiled and shook his head. "No. Certainly not the only reason."

Everything was quiet for a few moments. The sun wasn't up over the horizon entirely yet. She took a deep breath and looked up at him.

"Jareth, what happened? What chased you out?"

"The most evil and terrible monster in my entire realm, something that even my goblins wouldn't stand a chance against, although that's not really saying much."

"What is it?"

"My sister."

"Your...sister?" she asked hesitantly. "Is she anything like you?"

"Arin is a cruel, deceitful little monster who'd rather see the labyrinth fountains flow with blood and the hedges grow poisoned apples than actually take care of the goblins and creatures inside," Jareth growled. "The oubliettes are probably full right now, and I shudder to think what she's putting the cleaner to use for."

Sarah didn't answer, and Jareth noticed her mild confusion.

"Look," he said slowly, "I may not be the nicest person in the two kingdoms, but I do keep things running smoothly in that labyrinth and that is certainly not the easiest job in the world. It's hard enough keeping the bog of stench from overrunning its boundaries every spring, and I had just gotten all of the faeries to stop attacking my goblins when suddenly I have to defend my kingdom from my sister, who for some reason become even more powerful than I remember."

"I guess if I had to take care of that maze, I'd have a bad temper, too," Sarah gave him a small smile. "Is she the one that hurt your arm?"

Jareth nodded grimly. "I didn't expect her to be so powerful. When she barged into my castle and started to attack me, I thought she would be an easy fight. I didn't realize what kind of power she had until she revealed the griffin's heart."

"A real griffin heart?" Sarah wondered. "Those exist?"

"Well...in a way. It was a living griffin, but the heart is a large ruby that channels magick and magnifies it. It...made her stronger than I am." Jareth shook his head. "I should have killed her outright, instead of playing my games."

"You would have killed your own sister?"

"Of course," he answered without hesitating. "Our family has always fought over the throne. My father hated me, so he made me heir to the kingdom just before he died."

"Why would he do that if he hated you?"

Jareth smiled and looked back up at the clouds. "In the hopes that one of my siblings would kill me. But I learned the maze as fast as I could, and I managed to trick each of my brothers into various traps."

"How many brothers did you have?"

"Four. I was always the lightest of the three, so I could maneuver around places they couldn't. I drowned one of them in the bog, left one in an oubliette, trapped one in his favorite dream, and lured one into the dragon's cave." He sighed. "But I never expected Arin to come after me. She said she was going to the second kingdom and wouldn't return."

"But now she's back," Sarah murmured. "And destroying your labyrinth."

Jareth nodded. "I have to get back there and stop her. Do you remember where you found me?"

"Yeah, you were in the rose bushes," she answered, pointing at her plants. "Why?"

Jareth turned and headed for the roses. "She doesn't know how to use the labyrinth's magick. If she managed to send me out, she had to use a pathway that already existed." He knelt down and peered into the darkness under the thorns and leaves. "So...if she didn't know how to close it off, it should...still...be...here!" He sat back and smiled smugly. "It's still under all that. I can widen it, return and--"

"And what?" Sarah interrupted. "Bleed on her?"

"What?"

"Jareth, your arm is broken and you're obviously exhausted. Do you really think you can just take off and smack her around? You need time to rest."

Jareth sighed and shook his head. "I wish I could. Sarah, Arin is destroying my kingdom and everything in it. I have to kill her without wasting any more time."

Sarah groaned and ran her fingers through her hair. "Damn...all right, fine. I'm coming with you."

"No! It's too dangerous, you'll get killed."

"Look, you have to go through my roses and tear them out to get to your labyrinth, so I think it's fair that I go with you. Besides, you might need a pair of hands that work."

Jareth narrowed his eyes. "That was a low blow."

Sarah smiled. "Just hang on a minute, I'll be right back." Knowing he couldn't dig her roses up quickly, she ran inside and locked all her doors and windows, then wrote a quick letter to her father saying she would be out of town for a few days and could he drop by her house now and then to make sure it was fine? She slipped on her cheaper bracelets and rings, just in case she ran into that bird-headed man again, and went back outside. Jareth was still sitting by her roses, patiently waiting for her to get back.

"Well, are you ready?" he asked, a hint of a smile on his face.

She sat down beside him and started to pull her rose bushes out of the ground. "You don't mind anymore?"

"I might as well have some help," he admitted. "And I suppose it would be best if it came from the only person to ever beat me at my own games."

Sarah jerked the second bush out. "Of course, I did have some help."

"You were willing to have help," he said, helping her with one hand. "No one else ever did."

"Finally!" she gasped, digging the third bush out. "What's that?"

They both looked down into the ground, at what looked like a swirling whirlpool in the dirt.

"That would be the path," Jareth said. He grabbed the edge of the whirlpool and pulled at it, stretching it out in all directions until it was large enough for them to jump into. "We'll probably pop out at the beginning of the labyrinth, so watch out for those faeries."

He stood up and jumped down into the vortex, and Sarah took a deep breath before following. There was a brief feeling of disorientation as the darkness spun around her, tossing her backwards and forwards as she fell, and then a surprisingly soft landing on orange dirt.

"Jareth?" she called, looking around. "Where are you?"

"Over here!" he replied, and she spotted him standing next to the bushes outside the wall. "Get that lantern on the rock, will you?"

She glanced in the direction he pointed and found an old lantern laying sideways on a large boulder. When she picked it up, the candle inside crumbled to dust. She grimaced and blew out the powder, then opened the little latch and took it over to him.

"Hold it open," he said, leaning closer to the bush. Without warning, he darted forward and caught something in his hands. He turned as fast as he could and tossed something into the lantern. Sarah shut the door and looked inside. Jareth had caught a little faerie, blonde with a white gown and silvery wings.

"Why do you want a faerie?" she asked curiously, trying to ignore the creature as it hissed angrily.

"We'll be traveling during the night," he answered. "Those things give off enough light that I won't have to waste any magick for that."

They started walking around the wall, slapping away the occasional winged sprites as they dived at them, trying to free their trapped comrade. Sarah noticed that a lot of the hedges out here were dying and the blossoms had dried up.

"Things really are dying out here," she whispered. "Well, when do we go into the labyrinth?"

"When we find someone to open the door for us," he answered. "I'm sure Arin hasn't started her attack out here yet, so the door-gnomes must still be out here."

"Where's Hoggle?" she asked. "He should be out here."

"No, he and Bludo were trying to barricade off sections of the labyrinth when I was tossed out. With any luck, they're still all right."

Sarah sighed and kept looking around for anything vaguely resembling a door-gnome.

Sarah spotted the door-gnomes before Jareth did. At first they looked like smaller versions of Hoggle, but on closer inspection, she noticed that they also had a dull, blank look in their eyes. All of them were either running around in circles or hitting each other with huge wooden sticks, and then running around in circles.

"Are they dangerous?" she whispered.

Jareth chuckled. "No, just immensely stupid." He walked boldly up to them, with Sarah right behind him. "Which one of you is Wodkif?"

The gnomes, all of which looked the same to Sarah, grinned, pointed at themselves and yelled "I am! I am!" Then they started running around again, screaming "I am!"

"Then maybe you can open the door, since you're Wodkif," Jareth said. "The faeries said you can't, but--"

"Wodkif can open the door!" the gnomes yelled in unison. They ran in strange loops, heading for the wall around the labyrinth. Then they stopped there and started to jump again. "Open, open!"

"They are silly," Sarah nodded.

After the tenth or twelfth jump, the wall suddenly cracked and a huge wooden door appeared from beneath the stone surface. The gnomes continued jumping up and down, and the door opened up with a harsh grating sound, as if it didn't want to allow anyone inside. It started to close as soon as they could see beyond it.

"Hurry Sarah, it won't stay open forever!" Jareth said in a low voice. They both ran forward, and Sarah had to slide sideways to get through the narrow space. As it was, she nearly lost the faerie when it closed on the lantern. It stuck there a moment, and the door shuddered violently, trying to crush it in its rush to close. She put her foot on the wall and pulled back, dislodging the lantern and falling on the dirt amidst the deafening crash of the door locking in place once more.

"Are you all right?" Jareth called.

Sarah nodded and scooped the lantern back up. Inside, the faerie was hopping about and shaking her fists, obviously using words in her own language that Sarah would have blushed to hear, if she'd understood.

When Sarah looked around, she found Jareth leaning against a tall statue, cradling his arm. "How's it feel?" she asked.

"I'll survive," he replied. "I shouldn't have jarred it when I ran." He looked up, and in the distance they could both spot the castle, its walls dark and a strange black cloud hanging over it. "Well, let's get going. It'll be a long walk there."

"Can't you just...teleport to the castle or something?" she asked, walking beside him.

He shook his head. "We can't go to the castle first. I need to get something from the Gloom Dragon, and that means we have to pass the sphinx, and to get to her..." he sighed wearily. "To get to her, we have to go a very long way."

"Do you know how to get there?" she asked. "The maze'll shift before we get very far."

Jareth nodded. "Just a moment." He held his hand out, whispered something that sounded like what the faerie was screaming, and one of his familiar crystal bubbles appeared in his palm. Gently tossing it into the air, Jareth stood back as it floated before them for a few seconds, and then it languidly started off in the proper direction.

"We'll find a place to rest until the sun goes down," he whispered to her. "We can start off when it's dusk."

"Jareth?" she started to ask while they walked, "what happened here? It looks like all the hedges were burned up." She reached out towards one of the large bushes, and several of the leafs crumbled as her fingertips touched them.

"My sister despises plants," Jareth explained. "She prefers statues and stone walls and..." he shuddered at the thought, "...iron."

"Iron?" she wondered. "What's wrong with iron?"

"It's death to magick," he answered, as if she should know that. "An iron sword can cut through spells and magick forests as if they didn't exist. A tiny flake of it would kill that faerie, and it could poison me."

"What's the lantern made out of?" she asked. "And come to think of it, what is anything metal made of here?"

"What do you mean?"

"Iron is poison, I get that," she said. They both turned a few corners, watching their step as they crossed over pieces of dead branches. "But your goblins wear armor, they have cannons, they even had a robot until we destroyed it. And what about the cleaner? If it's not iron, what is it?"

Jareth sighed in exasperation. "Sarah, if you weren't helping me, I swear...I'm not supposed to reveal any of this to anyone. The labyrinth has so many secrets, but some of them are more important than others."

"But I am helping you," she smiled too sweetly. "Look, you know I'm not going to hurt you, and I want to save my friends from this witch."

They came to another turn, and instead of just more blackened hedges, the entire path had been destroyed. Stones were flung here and there, ashes lay on the ground, still smoldering, and strange unnatural insects ran through the mess. Each of them looked around and saw that the desolation spread for hundreds of feet in every direction. Absolutely nothing had been left standing.

Jareth gasped and dropped to one knee, as if he'd been struck. He lay his hand on the ground, ignoring the heat, and seemed to listen for something. Sarah watched him for five minutes, then knelt beside him.

"What is it?" she asked softly.

"It's dead," he whispered. "It's really dead. The magick's gone out of it." He lifted the charred remains up in his hand. "Salt...that monster sowed salt into the ground...it could take centuries to repair this..."

"Come on," Sarah nudged him, helping him stand. "We can't fix this now. We have to find a place to rest and then we'll start off again at night."

Still obviously shaken, and ashen from the sight, he allowed himself to be pulled through the scorched field up until they reached the far edge, where the burnt hedge started up again. Jareth paused and looked back, unwilling to leave.

"Jareth, don't stop," she insisted, giving him another tug.

"I can't leave it like this," he mumbled. "I have to fix it. I have to take care of my labyrinth."

"And you can do that by getting rid of Arin," she said. "Now come on, before we're spotted by whatever's running around out here."

"Wait," he said, creating a second crystal bubble and releasing it over the charred soil. It floated aimlessly, then slowly started creating another bubble. When there were two, both of those started to create more. "There. At least that will start to mend all this." 

Finally, with his conscience assuaged, he followed her back into the standing maze.

By the time the sun was high up in the cloudy sky, they had stumbled across a large fountain in the center of several collapsed trees. Water had ceased to flow through the fountain, and what was left had coalesced into muddy pools full of cinders and dead leaves, but Jareth still smiled.

"She may kill the surface, but she can't get to the underground." He stepped up to the fountain and pushed against one of the ornate flowers on the side. Instantly the entire fountain slid to the left, revealing a deep hole with a ladder on the edge. "Keep the lantern ready. It's going to get very dark."

"Are you sure you can climb down with that arm?" she asked, readjusting her grip on the lantern.

"I'll be all right," he assured her. "I'm used to working under harsh conditions." He dropped down the ladder before she could ask what he meant by that. Looking around one more time to make sure they weren't being watched, Sarah followed him down.

"What's down this ladder?" she asked. The fountain abruptly closed over them, sealing them in and plunging them into darkness. She pulled out the lantern and was delighted to see that the faerie was glowing brighter than a neon sign.

"Hopefully we'll hook up with the ones who made it down here," he answered. "If we're lucky, we may find a few of your friends as well. And after a few hours, we'll head straight for the sphinx."

Sarah nodded and they both fell silent, the only sound their shoes tapping on the rungs of the ladder. 

Sarah stepped off the last rung in the ladder, standing just a few inches from the space she could hear Jareth breathing in. She glanced around, but the gloom was too thick to see anything besides the faint glow coming from the faerie. Sarah held the lantern up and stared in surprise as the glow brightened around the huddled figure inside. Her little wings were wrapped around her body as she shivered, and her eyes were shut tight.

"Poor thing, why's she shaking?" Sarah asked.

"Faeries are afraid of darkness," Jareth answered. "She'll calm down, don't worry. The light merely makes her a target to frogs and other things that would eat her, but when she realizes she's safe in that lantern, she'll stop shaking and start cursing again."

He put his good hand in Sarah's free hand and led her down the twisted cavernous passages. Somewhere in the distance they could hear an underground stream rushing by, but the caves themselves were actually quite damp. Puddles covered the ground, she could tell by how often she splashed through them, and water from an unseen source continually dripped into them, echoing oddly through the darkness.

"Does anything live down here?" she wondered, whispering in a tiny voice.

"Nothing dangerous," he smiled reassuringly. "Maybe a few night butterflies, but nothing else. Unless other creatures have come down here for shelter."

"What's a dark butterfly?" Sarah asked.

Jareth was about to sigh in exasperation at the amount of questions she was asking, but when he looked over at her face, he held himself back. Unused to this sort of subterranean environment, Sarah was desperately grasping at anything that might take her mind off of her eerie surroundings.

"Well..." he started slowly, not sure how to describe them.

Suddenly the faerie let out a hideous scream that startled both of them, nearly causing Sarah to drop the lantern. When the lantern didn't break open, the faerie started another barrage of furious curses.

"Damn it!" Sarah growled, shaking the lantern angrily so that the faerie lost her footing and fell on her rear. "You get us caught and you're gonna get killed, too!"

"You can't reason with them," Jareth told her. "Faeries are notoriously bad tempered. They're like the bees on your world. She'll stay angry for hours and bite anyone who comes near."

"Bratty little thing," Sarah muttered. "Now everything down here knows where we are."

Jareth didn't answer, and she wondered if he was just as worried as she was. They continued down the path, and after a little while Sarah noticed something bright in the distance.

"Jareth, something's burning down there," she said softly.

"I know, I can see it," he answered just as quietly. "It looks like firelight. If there are any survivors from this part of my labyrinth, they'll be here. Unless they kept moving down these caves."

"Then why are the fires still burning?"

"Sarah, this may be a surprise to you, but I do not know all the answers, even in my own kingdom."

Sarah smirked, it was fun exasperating him. "Well, if someone is still down here, I'm sure whoever it is won't try to kill us." There was no reply. "Right?"

"Let's hope so."

They both fell silent and kept holding each other's hand, while Sarah occasionally jostled the lantern to hush the faerie. _I'm gonna have to be far away from this little pest when we let her out,_ she smiled to herself. _Otherwise we're both gonna get bitten._

As they came toward the light, they both stopped. Neither of them stepped forward. Jareth squeezed her hand once and let go, then went on ahead, cautiously creeping along the rocky wall. When he reached the opening, he peered around the corner. He suddenly laughed in relief and motioned for her to follow.

"What is it?" Sarah asked, running forward, unafraid. She came up beside him and a smile spread over her face.

Torches had been scattered around a large cave, sending just enough light around to maintain a dull orange glow. The flames reflected beautifully off of the mirror lake in the center of the cave, and a sizable boulder was set in the center with a thick layer of moss covering it. Stepping stones made of diamonds and rubies sparkled up at them. A narrow staircase had been chiseled into the side of the wall, leading up to a small plateau that broke off into a smaller tunnel, obviously handmade.

"It's so gorgeous," she whispered, walking in. Her footsteps echoed eerily through the cave, and there was a loud fluttering to her right. She turned and gasped in surprise as hundreds of black butterflies shot off of the wall and circled around her. Their dark wings reflected the light in rainbows, surrounding her with miniature prisms. After a minute, they calmed down and floated back against the cave wall.

She stood there in delighted amazement until Jareth came closer. "Those are dark butterflies," he whispered.

"They're so pretty," she replied, moving closer to examine them. Their wings were feathery and wet, as if they'd been dripped on. They shimmered like a cascading waterfall. "I wish they'd fly out into the sunlight."

"Then they'd burn up," he said, turning his back. After all, he was used to the strange things in his labyrinth. He glanced across the lake to the boulder. "I think we could spend the night here. I'm sure we'll be safe, and if not, we'd still be able to hear anyone coming."

"Yeah," she nodded vaguely. "Still...who kept those torches going?"

Before she had even finished her sentence, she heard shuffling scrapes on the plateau overlooking their lake. She looked up and saw a gigantic shadow dancing within the firelight, whatever was back there was coming closer. She pressed against Jareth, who also turned and raised one hand, preparing a crystal sphere. As it came closer, though, the shadow diminished to a reasonable size and the figure came close enough to be seen from their level. 

"Sarah!"

Sarah yelled in joy and took off, running up the staircase with wild abandon. She raced towards her friend and threw her arms around him, hugging the shaggy pelt.

"Ludo, you're all right!"

Jareth stood back and watched the two friends reacquaint themselves, taking the time to look over Ludo's fur for signs of blood or scratches. To his relief, there were none, which meant that Arin had not yet discovered the world beneath the labyrinth. The majority of his subjects would be safe, then.

"Ludo, where's Hoggle?" Sarah asked, standing back a bit so she could look Ludo in the eye. "Where's everyone?"

Ludo pointed down the tunnel he'd come from and said in his usual lumbering voice, "far away."

"They probably went down to the shadow world," Jareth nodded knowingly. "It's a long distance from here, but if they make it, it would be worth the trip."

"If they make it?" Sarah mumbled.

"Oh, it's not that hard, just a few traps that are so old they may have forgotten not to spring open during an emergency. I'm sure they'll be fine. It's the safest place they could go." The look on Sarah's face told him his explanation didn't help reassure her any, and he shook his head. "In any case, we'd best get some sleep. We have a hard journey tomorrow."

Sarah nodded, and the three all used the half-hidden stepping stones to get to the boulder at the lake's center. She lay down beside Ludo, who allowed her to snuggle up against his warm fur. Watching with a touch of envy, Jareth settled for stretching out a few feet away at the boulder's edge, taking care not to disturb the delicate moss. He hated not being able to merely blink in and out of any spot at whim, which not only saved time but saved damage to the labyrinth as well. No unfortunate flower trampled underfoot, no wandering unicorns accidentally startled into knocking its head against a wall. He winced at that memory and kept telling himself it was the unicorn's fault for being so jittery in the first place.

"I will kill you, Arin," he promised quietly. "I'll trap you in a bubble and let it get smaller until you're crushed. Or I'll turn you into a rat and let my goblins eat you. Or I could settle for ripping that griffin's heart out of your chest." Careful not to jar his broken arm, he shifted to one side and turned to the lantern between him and Sarah, staring at the little faerie who'd fallen asleep. Her body only gave a tiny glow now that she was unconscious. "Bratty little thing," he mumbled. "To think, I'm trying to save a labyrinth full of stupid creatures who bite and scream and fight and curse...I must be a damn fool."

~*~*~*~

Jareth woke to the sound of bracelets noisily jangling, and he opened his eyes to see Sarah quietly turn, pressing closer to Ludo. The furry monster snored up a storm, making Jareth wonder how he hadn't been disturbed in his sleep. Wide awake, he sat up and gave the cavern a cursory glance. There was no way to tell what time it was just by looking, so he cupped his hand and created a bubble, gazing into intently. Linked to the other bubbles left in the dead zone they'd seen before, he could use this one in his hand like a window and see through those on the surface.

"Just a little after twilight," he nodded to himself. A tiny smile crept over his face. "And looks like my bubbles have been busy." He could barely see the dead area for the thousands of bubbles floating over the ashes, dripping magick back into the soil. With a sigh he pulled the magick from the bubble back into himself, and the crystal sphere disappeared.

"Hmm...Jareth?" Sarah mumbled, slowly waking up. "What time is it?"

"Time to go," Jareth said firmly. "It's night, we'll be able to move safely now. Well, safer than during the day, at least."

"Okay, then," she responded. "C'mon, Ludo, let's go."

Ludo hesitated. "Ludo...stay."

Sarah blinked in surprise. "What? Stay?"

Jareth stood, staggering a bit since he couldn't use one arm. "He has to. If Arin comes this way, someone has to be here to know about it."

"But what can he do against her?" Sarah cried.

"Go and tell the others," he said as if it was obvious. "Look, he's not stupid. He's not going to try to fight her. But the rest of the labyrinth dwellers must know that they have to move again if she tracks them down this path."

She shook her head stubbornly, trying to find a gap in that logic. Why not let someone who could move quickly do this? Hoggle, he was fast...but then, he was also one of the brighter people in the maze, and they needed him to lead them out. Sir Didymus...no, he'd "charge!" and that would be the end of that. But his trusty steed...no, the sheepdog would just scramble off with or without his master. And the goblins were too stupid to trust with the task..."Damn."

"He'll be fine," Jareth tried to reassure her, but unused to such speech, he came off sounding cold. "Arin won't know about this for some time to come, and we should have killed her before that happens. Now let's go."

"Ludo," Sarah started, turning back to her friend, "you will be careful, won't you? I don't want to lose you."

"Ludo...careful..." he nodded, giving her one last hug. "Stones friends."

Confused, she looked around the cave. Sure enough, there were dozens of other boulders situated around the cavern that she had failed to notice before. Rocks upon rocks made up the walls and the staircase, probably even the tunnel they'd come down. Ludo would probably know if anyone came down the path hours ahead of time and call the stones down on their heads, leaving no way to escape.

Having to be satisfied with that, she picked up the lantern and followed Jareth down another tunnel out of the cave, and the inclined floor told her they were heading back up to the surface.

~*~*~*~

Sitting up in the castle window, surveying her new kingdom, Arin smiled grimly as she spotted a lone bubble floating up at her. Apparently Jareth was back, and had been careless enough to lose one of his precious crystal toys. How ironic it had wandered straight to her. Flipping her red hair back behind herself, she reached a hand out and deftly caught the bubble, cradling it so it wouldn't pop.

"And do you have any pretty pictures to show me, darling?" she whispered, gazing into it. She frowned, unable to comprehend what she saw. It seemed like there were thousands of bubbles in its surface, telling her that somewhere, at the other end of this link, Jareth had created too many crystals to see through. 

"I thought I didn't leave him with that much magick," she muttered. "He's trickier than I thought. But not _that_ tricky. He left you behind, didn't he? Probably needed a guide to show him through his own maze."

She abruptly popped the bubble between two clawed fingernails. "And he's not the only one with tricks." Motioning for one of the goblins cowering in the corner to come closer, she waited patiently as the smallest one was pushed forward. It crept over to her, whimpering with every breath, and bowed as low as it could, hoping to win good favor with flattery. She smiled kindly, reached down, and picked it up, raking one nail across its throat. Blood spilled out onto the floor, drenching the stones that were turning brown from a previous victim. Tossing its body onto a heap growing outside her window, indeed growing outside every castle window, she dipped one finger in the puddle at her feet and let one perfect drop form at the tip. Instead of dripping off, though, it hung like slime and formed into a small, red faerie with wasp wings.

"Go find Jareth," she ordered it. "And tell me where he is. I want to play with him a little." As it darted away, she realized she still had the two card dogs to get rid of before she could dispose with that annoying passage straight to the castle. She would need several faeries for that. With a kind smile, she motioned for another goblin to come closer.

tbc... 


	2. Questions Asked

****

Broken Wings Part 2

Sarah heaved a sigh and looked around herself again. They had passed out of the hedge maze for the time being and were now wandering through a range of brown stone walls with streams of clear water along channels cut alongside the walls, fed by impossibly continuous waterfalls. Moonlight reflected off the water and spun on every surface, giving them the illusion of moving through water. 

"How much longer do we have to keep walking?" she sighed.

"The labyrinth is quite large," he said. "If I was at full strength I could just take us right there in an instant. Instead..." he kicked at a puddle for emphasis. "We're stuck walking."

"Why aren't you at your full strength?"

Jareth halted and stared at her. "Sarah, just how many questions do you intend to ask?"

"Until you start answering me," she replied. "Most of the time you find some way to avoid the subject."

"How do I avoid the subject?" he griped.

She gave him another of her annoyingly sweet smiles and said in an oh-so obvious tone "just like you're doing right now."

Found out, he narrowed his eyes and would have crossed his arms if one of them hadn't been broken. "I have to be careful," he muttered. "Arin could be listening."

"Then you wouldn't have said you aren't at full strength," Sarah said. Jareth glared at her, and she blinked. "Well, it's only logical."

"Your world is too logical for its own good," he snapped.

"Frustrating, isn't it?" she replied, her smile turning into a smug grin. "Now, how come you're not at full strength?"

He brushed a few loose strands back from his face. "Because I was arrogant. Arin showed up at the castle and demanded that I hand over the labyrinth. I laughed, and then the goblins laughed, and I snapped my fingers to send her to another part of my maze, where I could watch her wander forever. Only she didn't disappear. And the magick I sent at her...she just seemed to soak it up."

"So...every spell, she just sucks it up?"

"More than that." Jareth turned a corner and stepped through another batch of puddles. "Once she started, my magick kept flowing to her. I couldn't stop it. I finally managed to make the floor beneath her crumble away, but...she launched a gate spell at me."

"To send you to my world?" Sarah hopped over the puddles and raised the lantern, revealing only more twists and turns.

"No, to hell. Thank goodness she's a lousy aim. I couldn't stop the spell, but I had enough energy to redirect it and send me to earth. And...I didn't become an owl quite fast enough. I hit your wall and knocked myself out for awhile." He turned another corner.

Sarah frowned when she only saw more water. "Um, Jareth. How do you know where you're going?"

He paused and stared at her. "What?"

She put one hand on her hip, jostling the lantern against her leg and making the faerie inside grumble little curses. "You haven't even stopped to look around once. How can you be so sure without a map?"

He opened his mouth to answer, but he hesitated and gazed into the distance for a moment. "I...don't know. I've never thought about it. I just do." Jareth glanced at the crystal ball floating before him. "I just trust my magick."

Sarah tilted her head curiously, about to ask another question, when something small and dark flashed across her vision. She and Jareth both stepped back and spotted the black blur not too far away, already zooming back down the path at them. They ducked as it flew directly overhead, and this time they both got a good look at it.

Dark red with black streaks, the little thing hovering a few feet away copied their real faerie down to the last detail, save for the more waspish wings and macabre coloring. It shrieked at them, baring white fangs before diving again.

"What is it?" Sarah cried, slamming against the wall and soaking the back of her shirt. "I thought everyone had taken off!"

"It's one of Arin's little monsters," Jareth growled. "But how the hell did she find out...damn, of course! One of my bubbles..."

Inside the lantern, the faerie shook off the water droplets that had seeped inside and tried to hide under the metal top, out of sight. Still flying around, the red waspy thing spotted the light flickering about even though the inside was wet, and it guessed the source of that light. With another scream it flew directly at the lantern, hitting the side and jostling the faerie out of the top. She landed on the bottom, squeaking in pain, and the wasp rammed the lantern again.

Sarah held the lantern at arms length as if holding onto a centipede. "Jareth..."

"Sarah, hold very still," he whispered, kneeling down. He dipped his fingers into a puddle, and to Sarah's amazement, his hand continued deeper than should have been possible until half of his arm had vanished. 

While her attention focused on him, however, the wasp managed to knock the lantern out of her hand. Crashing to the ground, the door flew open and the faerie darted into the air, flying as fast as it could. The wasp followed only an inch behind, and once in reach it grabbed the faerie's arm and flung her to the ground. It landed next to her, claws raised, hissing as it readied to slash the cowering creature's throat.

Instead a loud scrape, like metal grinding on stone, echoed between the walls and made all of them look around to find its source. Jareth stood up, a gray sword in one hand, water dripping from the blade.

"Back away," he told his companion, who wasted no time pressing herself against the wall.

Forgetting the faerie, the wasp rose into the air and lunged at Jareth, who tried to slash it in half. It zipped to one side, dodging his sword and slicing its claws into his arm as it flew by. Before it went too far, he turned and swung his blade, cutting off the wings. The red faerie dropped to the ground while the wings splattered like blood against the wall. Undeterred, it crawled as fast as it could towards his boots, intent on doing more damage.

His aim made easy, Jareth dragged the blade across the slick stones and cut the thing in half, whereupon both halves melted much like the wings had done. He breathed out and knelt again, reaching back into the puddle and rinsing his hands off, splashing some water on his injury. Sarah also bent and scooped the huddled faerie up, placing her back inside the lantern. She looked so pathetic curled on the hard surface that Sarah tore a bit of her sleeve off and lay it beside her, smiling when the faerie grabbed it and used it as a blanket.

"Now what?" she asked.

Jareth carried the sword in one hand, ignoring how it continuously dripped water. "We keep moving. We should reach the sphinx before dawn, and then we'll see if she'll help us."

Sarah looked back up at the dark sky and the unfamiliar constellations. "Do you think your sister sent any more of those things after us?"

He paused, saying nothing for several seconds. When he did lift his head, his eyes remained staring at the ground. "It's likely."

"Jareth?" she whispered. "What is it?"

"Each of those little things," he sighed, turning back towards their path and the bubble waiting patiently for them. "Each one must be created out of a sacrifice."

"She has to kill...?" Sarah gave a little gasp.

Jareth nodded. "Her spells all require sacrifices, unless she steals someone else's magick. Like I said before, I hate to think what my cleaner's been used for. I think I'll burn that once I kill Arin."

She followed quietly behind him, hoping all of her friends had escaped, even the goblins and the strange fireys. Biting her lip in thought, she reached into her pocket and plucked out an old tube of lipstick she'd forgotten about before. 

__

I wonder... She looked down at the ground. Maybe if the labyrinth truly was losing strength, it wouldn't be able to turn arrows around anymore. She knelt and wrote an arrow facing the opposite direction, then stepped quickly after Jareth.

"Haywhachoodoinagin--oioioioioioioioioi--yamuthasafraggenaardvark!"

She turned in surprise and looked back. Her arrow had disappeared. With a slight smile she ran to catch up with Jareth. _So that's what happened to them before,_ she smirked. _I guess his sister hasn't chased out every Labyrinth dweller yet._

Ahead of her, Jareth closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath. He glanced at the thin slice on his arm, pulling the bits of bloody cloth aside to reveal tiny red welts rising at the very edges of the cut.

"Damn," he muttered. 

"What?" Sarah asked. "Did you say something?"

Jareth turned his attention from his wound and pointed ahead. "We're almost out of this part. Then we head into the forest. The sphinx lives at the center."

"Do you think she'll still be there?" Sarah asked. 

Jareth nodded. "The gloom dragon would never leave his lair, and the sphinx would never leave him. I'm sure she has her own methods of keeping safe."

Sarah held the lantern up, and the faerie's light reflected back off the water. Not too far ahead lay the first few trees of what appeared to be a dense forest. "Ah...is your sword supposed to drip like that?"

"Hm?" he wondered, and then held his sword up. "Oh, this. Forgot I was holding it." He tossed it against the wall, where it splashed into harmless droplets. The muscles in his arm throbbed vaguely, but he did his best to ignore it.

~*~*~*~

Sarah frowned as they walked through the forest. Apparently Arin hadn't chosen a way to destroy it yet, since it was still mostly intact. True, the absence of birds singing and leaves rustling made the silence absolutely eerie, but at least nothing had been reduced to flaming cinders. Still, Jareth seemed to think it had. His eyes were half closed, his pace had slowed, and his breathing had become more labored. As much as Sarah wanted to think he was merely tired of walking, he seemed too listless to only be out of breath.

"Jareth, are you all right?" she asked, coming up beside him.

"I'm fine," he answered tersely.

"No, you're not," she insisted. She lay her hands on his shoulders, intending to make him stop and look at her, but she pulled back when he winced and shied away. A strange wetness coated her fingers, and when she looked down, her fingers were coated in blood. "Jareth?"

"It's only where that little monster scratched me," he said. "It's nothing serious."

Not paying any attention, she pulled the torn bits of cloth aside to reveal a deep cut and angry red marks spreading outward in all directions. While no longer bleeding, the cut had also not healed. He jerked out of her hold as soon as she'd seen the wound.

"Sarah--"

"No!" she yelled, stamping her foot. "No more 'Sarah, stop asking questions'! No more bullshit, Jareth! That isn't some kind of little paper cut, that looks infected!"

He mumbled something.

"What?"

"It's poison," he sighed in defeat, turning his head away. "Arin's sprites are made out of blood and poison from her own hands."

"Poison?" Sarah whispered. "Will...will it...?"

"It won't kill me," he reassured her. _Though I may wish it had._ "I'll just be very tired for awhile. Don't worry. I'll be fine."

"You'd better not be lying to me," she warned. A tiny smirk forced its way onto her lips. "I'd hate to have to take you over my knee and belt you."

His eyes widened, and his jaw snapped shut. "You...no one ever dared even try to discipline me or my siblings!"

"It's high time someone did, then," she casually remarked, stepping ahead of him. "Explains a lot, though."

Rendered speechless, if only for a moment, he hastened to catch up to her. "What do you mean, 'explains a lot'? I am no spoiled brat!"

She turned on him, bringing him up short. "No? You toy with people, Jareth. Me, Toby, you even admitted you were playing games with Arin before you found out she was serious. How many other people have you used for your own enjoyment?"

"You have no idea what you're talking about," he all but growled. "I never hurt you."

"Not for lack of trying!" she snapped. "You set the cleaner after me, nearly dumped me in the bog, called up your entire army to kill me and my friends!"

"Damn it, Sarah, I was bored! It was only a game!"

"It was our lives!"

"You wouldn't have stayed otherwise!"

She blinked and stared for several minutes, and he realized he'd said more than he'd meant to. He turned away and kept walking down the path.

"You're lonely," she said softly.

"I am not," he bit back. "I have goblins and fierys and...and everyone else in this Labyrinth."

"And they're such wonderful conversationalists," she rolled her eyes.

He didn't reply.

"Jareth..." she whispered, wondering if she'd gone too far and knowing she was about to step farther. "Do you want to leave the labyrinth?"

He paused, but didn't face her. A few seconds passed. "No," he answered. "I can't live anywhere else but here."

"Why not?" She reached one arm out to touch his shoulder but held herself back. 

"The magick," he admitted. "I need it. It's like an addiction, it keeps my heart going...and it needs me. My labyrinth will die without me. I...have to tend to it, heal it if some part breaks, take care of...everyone..."

"Keeps your heart going?" she asked. "For how long?"

"As long as it wants. I can leave occasionally, survive a few weeks in your world, or the second kingdom."

She raised one hand to her mouth, pressing the knuckles to her lips. "Then...you're trapped here."

Jareth faced her with a small smile. "It sounds worse than it really is." With a sigh he looked up at the cloudless blue sky between the tree branches. "We'd better hurry. With any luck we might reach the sphinx before sunset."

"You're changing the subject again," she whispered, but not loud enough for him to hear. Sarah fell into step beside him, glancing at his injury every so often. Finally she couldn't help herself. "Would you at least let me bandage that so nothing else gets in it?"

He looked aside at her without breaking stride. "Bandage it with what?"

Sarah remembered then that she hadn't brought anything with except a few cheap bits of jewelry, but while she thought, her hand brushed against the hem of her shirt. She looked down and smiled. Still a tad damp from the watery part of the maze, it was long enough to suit her purposes and better than nothing.

"Hang on," she muttered, taking a firm hold of her hem and tugging. The fabric ripped along the edge until she had a thick strip of cloth while leaving her shirt serviceable. "Okay, come here."

He stared quietly while she tied the strip over his torn shirt around the gash, fortunately with enough material to wrap it twice before tying snugly. "Ow."

"Sorry," she murmured. Checking to make sure it wouldn't fall off, she nodded with a smile. "There. All done."

Seemingly unimpressed, he still favored her with a rare sincere smile that faded as a twinge of pain shot up his arm. "Let's keep going, then. Several more hours to walk."

She pulled her shirt down an inch or so and continued at his side.

Several hours later, he collapsed.

It was all rather sudden. One moment Jareth was walking beside her, the next he had fallen to his knees. She dropped beside him and put her arms around his shoulders, but all she could do was help him lean against a large tree in a thick pile of dead leaves.

"Thought you said you'd just get tired," she sighed.

He didn't respond, didn't even look at her.

Sarah merely sighed again. Lying was probably just his second nature, couldn't help himself. She glanced around the empty forest and sat down beside him. "How long'll this last?"

He shrugged, then winced as the motion pulled at his torn skin. "A few hours...a few days. Hard to tell."

__

I don't think we'll have that long, she thought. "How far is it from the sphinx to your gloom dragon?"

"A few hours walk," he breathed, and he closed his eyes. "Maybe. Maybe closer. The trees start...looking the same..."

Sarah put her hand to his forehead and winced. "Well, you certainly aren't going anywhere soon. Looks like I'm gonna have to meet the sphinx alone."

"No," he cried, grabbing her hand. "You are not going anywhere alone. One of those little pests might find you--"

"They might find me anyway," she argued, "sitting here with the Goblin King with what's probably the last faerie glowing like a little lighthouse. We don't have time to argue about this. Where is she?"

He stared into her eyes for several seconds, weighing his choices back and forth until he let go of her hand. "Follow the crystal. It will take you to her."

Sarah nodded and stood. "Anything I should know before I go?"

"Don't act weak around her," he said. "But don't be disrespectful either. Don't try to tell any lies, she'll see right through that. Tell her you need to get to the gloom dragon to get a scale."

"A scale?" she asked. "Like to weigh something?"

"No, a dragon's scale."

"Just one?"

He gave a rueful laugh. "Believe me, one is enough. Once you have it, try to find your way back here."

"All right." She straightened her shirt and looked down the path. "I'll leave the faerie with you."

"Take her with you, you'll need her."

She stared at him. "I'm not going to leave you alone in the dark."

"You said it yourself, that faerie's a lighthouse," he pointed out. "If you leave her here, we'll probably have another winged attacker. Besides, you'll need to see where you're going."

Sarah bit her lip. "But..."

"I'll be fine," he insisted. "Trust me. Now go on before the sun comes back up."

"All right. I promise I'll come back."

She picked up the lantern and turned to go, but he called her back before she'd taken too many steps.

"Sarah."

"Yes?" she asked, looking back.

He hesitated a moment. "Be careful."

She smiled and nodded. "I will be."

~*~*~*~

Forty-five minutes later, footsore and sick of listening to the faerie's angry chatter, Sarah stopped when the bubble came to rest at the mouth of a large cave. There was no rumbling or roaring or even flames shooting out occasionally, though she'd half expected the flames. She looked into the darkness until she decided she couldn't afford to be cautious, and stepped inside.

And promptly fell straight down, screaming all the way.

She had no way to tell how far she'd fallen, but she landed on something big and soft that "whumph'ed" when she hit. Inside the lantern, the faerie hit the bottom, bounced against the lantern's top, and hit the bottom again. Sarah groaned and pushed herself up on all fours.

Right in front of her eyes, two glowing lights popped up. "Hm. I'd not thought anything living remained in the forest."

Sarah stiffened and swallowed once. "Um, hi. I'm sorry I dropped in on you, but um...are you the sphinx?"

A low chuckle rumbled through the soft surface, and Sarah then realized that she was indeed on top of whomever she was speaking to.

"Sarah? Not the whelp that trumped the king at his own game?"

She gave a lopsided grin. "Yes, that's me."

"And dropped in my lap."

Sarah did not like the way that sounded and promptly sat back, folding her arms as if speaking with a creature that could eat her was an everyday occurrence. "I need to know where to find the gloom dragon. I have to get a scale from him."

"You?" the sphinx laughed. "Carry a scale? You'll be flattened under the weight."

"I can carry one," Sarah snapped. "Now I need the directions, before Arin finds out where we are."

The lights blinked. "You think I'm afraid of that little minx?"

Sarah smiled sweetly, much the same as she did when Jareth was trying to pull something. It was becoming second nature. "I don't see you flying out to take 'that little minx' on."

The sphinx growled, and a blaze of light struck up along the walls as thousands of fireflies reacted to her tone. Sarah shielded her eyes until they adjusted, and she finally could see where she was sitting. The sphinx was indeed huge, filling up the cave she had apparently been sleeping in before, and she lay on her back with her feline legs and tail in the air. Two yellow feathery wings lay flat on the floor under her, but Sarah mostly noticed the female face staring at her, two glowing eyes set against pale skin and black hair.

Sarah put her hand down, and she glanced aside when the surface wiggled. To her surprise, she sat in the center of a large female breast.

"No wonder the landing was soft," she mumbled to herself.

The sphinx chuckled. "There was a reason the men of Athens found me so imposing. You really want to find the gloom dragon, then you must answer a riddle."

"Oh. Okay." Sarah inwardly smiled. _It'll probably be that one about the stages of man. No prob. Everyone knows that one._

"I have a hundred legs but cannot stand, a long neck but no head, and I eat the maid's life."

Sarah's jaw dropped. "What?"

"Don't tell me you expected to hear that old four legs, two legs, three legs riddle?" the sphinx laughed, showing sharp teeth behind her human lips. "I'm not stupid. Everyone knows that one."

__

Oh shit. _Jareth didn't say anything about a riddle._ Sarah chewed her bottom lip nervously. _Okay, think. Think. They word those damn things so you don't get a good picture of what it is. Okay...a hundred legs, a long neck...it didn't mention anything else._ She pictured a hundred short stubby legs grouped together under a single long neck, then altered her mental image to just a hundred sticks under one really big one.

"Give up?" the sphinx asked, licking her lips.

"Not yet!" Sarah snapped. "I know exactly what giving up means."

"They tell that damn Oedipus story too much," she grumbled.

"Lots of twigs...grouped together around a big one..." Sarah smiled suddenly. "Oh, that's a stupid riddle to ask a woman."

The sphinx winced.

"It's a broom," Sarah giggled. "Eats the maid's life, I get it now. Sweeping is backbreaking work, I'll admit it."

One glowing eye quirked halfway. "That was an easy one anyway. You'll find the dragon guarding the fountain of jewels. Go straight out my cave, turn right at the rock shaped like a dancer, and down the stairs you'll find. Now go away."

Sarah would've teased the sphinx about the riddle if she hadn't worried about being eaten. Instead she decided being polite was the best thing, seeing as how even the faerie had been scared silent. "Um, could you tell me the way out?"

"Turn around."

She did as she was told and found a ladder-type set of grooves cut into the cave wall. Worrying she'd be bitten in the back, Sarah wasted no time in scrambling up the wall, sliding the lantern on her arm for easier transport.

"Hang on, Jareth," she whispered. "I'm halfway there."

~*~*~*~

The rock shape looked more like a lap dancer than the ballet dancer Sarah had envisioned, and the stairs were a steep slope of stone blocks that might have once been steps, but all in all, the sphinx's directions were good. Still, with all the vines she had to sidestep and the rocks slipping underfoot, her sneakers felt more like wooden clogs and her legs felt like mush.

"Just another corner," she said for the fifth time. "Just one more. Just one more."

The faerie squawked and jumped up and down a few times, jostling the lantern.

"Oh, shut up." Sarah rattled the lantern once and made the faerie slip and hit her rear end. "Maybe the dragon'll wanna eat fresh faerie, you ever think about that?"

The faerie hushed and pulled the scrap of cloth over her front.

Sarah opened her mouth to say something else, but high-pitched chimes echoed from around...yes, the next corner. When she came around, she found a huge marble fountain, with lions heads carved along the sides and tall storks standing in the middle beaks upraised and wings held high. Instead of water, though, the birds sprayed stones of every color imaginable, diamonds, pearls, emeralds, sapphires, rubies, onyx, jade, gold...stones literally littered the ground around the fountain.

Her crystal bubble guide continued forward, somehow avoiding the precious rocks as they showered around it, and hovered in front of what looked like a huge gray stone at least twenty times her size. Sarah frowned and looked around the boulder, wondering if the dragon was hiding behind it. Only when one side of the rock shifted and extended out a little did she realize that was the gloom dragon, asleep right in front of her.

Afraid the bubble might somehow wake the dragon up, she motioned with one hand for it to return. Once again it passed the sprayed stones and stopped in front of her. The dragon yawned, displaying a row of teeth to make any horror movie director proud, rolled on its back, and snapped its jaws shut. Its legs paddled a little, as if chasing something.

__

I don't wanna do this anymore, she thought. She looked down at the bubble. "Can you show me Jareth?"

The bubble stayed blank.

"Please?"

No response.

"I'll pop you, I swear I will--"

The inside of the bubble stopped reflecting the surrounding forest and showed her a miniature three dimension picture of the goblin king still asleep against the tree. Leaves fell around and on him as the nearby trees began to visibly wither, making the bubble look like some kind of snow globe. Even at this distance, she could see him panting for breath.

"Oh, Jareth..." She looked back up at the dragon. _Maybe...maybe it's shed scales on the ground. Maybe I won't have to wake it up. Maybe..._ "Find a loose scale," she whispered. "The farther from that dragon, the better."

The bubble floated around the area, zipping along the ground and around falling rocks. Both Sarah and the faerie watched it move, occasionally scanning the treetops for any more evil red sprites. The dragon yawned again and rolled back on its side, a wing spreading over itself like a blanket and making it look like a small plateau.

Finally the crystal stopped. Stones crunched against each other as she walked over. Her jaw dropped. "_That's_ a scale?" she gasped. She bent and heaved up what looked like a tablet fit for half of the ten commandments. "It's solid rock." She had to slide the lantern up her arm before she could get a good grip on the flat oblong stone. "All right, let's go."

Taking its place in front, the crystal pointed her back up the stairs. She closed her eyes. "Of course." Maneuvering the stone so that she could carry it on her back, hands holding the bottom, she started up.

Halfway up the stairs, the lantern swung a little too hard and slammed into the stone. The resultant clang reverberated along the rocks, past the fountain, to the gloom dragon. A gray eye opened and spotted the scale thief fighting her way up the crags, the faerie's light like a beacon.

To her credit, Sarah did not freeze or scream or turn to look when she heard the angry roar behind her. She merely grunted, hefting the stone a little higher, and picked up the pace. Sounds, like a huge snake slithering over the ground, came to her, matching her pace. "Show me the dragon," she ordered the crystal.

Instead of a frontal shot, the bubble gave her a side view of the chase. The dragon put one paw in front of the other, laboriously dragging itself along the broken stones and crushing them further. It groaned and pushed with its hind legs to get a little higher. She'd thought the tail might swish like an angry cat's, but it only hung like a limp rag.

"Of course, it's stone," she said with a laugh. "It can't move that fast." It reminded her of a vaudeville chase scene, where the chased and chaser could only take tiny steps. Normally she could have outrun it, but the stone weighed her down so she could only keep a few feet ahead of it.

With her eyes on the bubble, however, she put her foot down on a loose rock, which shifted and tripped her, sending her to the ground. The tablet fell on a patch of soft dirt, intact. She winced and hauled her abused foot up to see if it was sprained. 

The dragon's head came up over the edge at that moment and lunged one arm at her. She shrieked and scooted back on the ground, but its claws still caught her right shoe. With one tug it came off, and the dragon brought it up to its eyes. Sarah thought it might eat her shoe, but it only scraped at the sole with one of its claws, dropping a few colored rocks on the ground.

"Huh?" She looked at the bottom of her other shoe. Sure enough, a few pearls and sapphires had stuck in the rubber. Hoping that was it, she yanked them all out and hopped over, holding them out. The dragon put one paw out and caught the gems as she dropped them. With a snort of smoke and a roll of his eyes, the dragon threw her shoe back at her and turned to leave.

"Sorry," she said, stepping into her shoe.

It only flipped its tail at her.

~*~*~*~

After ages of walking, Sarah reached Jareth, still fast asleep against the tree. She dropped to her knees beside him and let the scale land on a thick patch of grass and leaves, leaving the lantern next to it.

"Jareth? Jareth, wake up." She pushed the blonde hair out of his face, wincing when she felt his temperature. "Jareth?"

His eyes fluttered for a moment, then closed again.

"Damn." She looked around at the darkening forest and the stars becoming visible in the sky. A chill had settled in the air and only intensified as the wind picked up. "We can't stay here." She stared at the bubble and frowned. "I'm going to need your help. First you need to make more bubbles so you can carry that tablet."

The crystal actually shuddered in mid-air.

"I know you don't want to, but it's my only choice. Please."

It shuddered again and slowly split in two, and then those two separated into four...she sighed when she saw how long it would take. 

"And now I need someplace safe to take Jareth."

The bubbles suddenly started bopping each other, zooming about in a frantic effort to push the other bubbles down and come out on top. Sarah's eyes widened at what she recognized as a fight, until at last one large crystal floated in front of her, the obvious winner. Leaving the others to bring the tablet after them, Sarah pushed the lantern back down her arm and leaned over Jareth. She eased her arms under his back and legs and stood, cradling him.

"You're so light." She looked over him again to make sure there were no pieces missing. "How can you be this light?"

The bubble floated on into the trees, and she looked back a few times to see if the scale was behind her. She could barely decipher its outline through the darkness, but the multiplying bubbles gave off a faint glow that she could spot. Remembering how she'd fallen before, she looked back at the bubble guiding her, keeping an eye on the lantern's light on the ground.

They came to a halt at a rose patch that made Sarah's heart skip a beat. On twisting vines shaped into a dome, roses had folded up for the night amongst nightmarishly long thorns. She tried to look around it, but the briar patch extended far into the distance.

"I guess this is another part of the maze," she whispered. "How do we get in?"

Her crystal guide floated straight into the vines and disappeared.

She gaped for a few seconds before the thought came to her. "Maybe it's like those walls around the labyrinth." Turning her back so the thorns would poke her first and not Jareth, she backed into the section the crystal had disappeared. Instead of the stinging pain brought by walking into rose bushes, they passed harmlessly through the illusion-masked door and into a low enclosure. The bubble paused, then floated back out, presumably to join the rest of the crystals.

Sarah knelt and set Jareth on the ground, yawning while she lay down beside him, nearly tossing the lantern aside before she remembered the faerie was in there. She just placed it an arm's length away. "Finally. Feels like I've been walking all day." She closed her eyes and stretched once before putting an arm around Jareth. "Let's hope we'll be alive to walk all day tomorrow." Half an hour later, the scale floated in and dropped next to the lantern, scaring the faerie awake, and the bubbles scattered.

~*~*~*~

Arin paced back and forth in front of her window, looking up every once in awhile for a dark sprite to return. She rubbed one hand, massaging the muscles sore from cutting through goblin skin, not the thinnest of hides to penetrate. A good deal of dried blood under her fingernails caught her attention, and she cleaned it off in the wash basin near Jareth's...her bed.

"Goblins," she called out after the water had turned red. "Bring me clean water."

None answered. She walked to the door and flung it open, spotting a few goblins that hadn't run down the hall and out of sight quickly enough. "Stupid useless good for nothing goblins..." She grabbed the wash basin and flung it after them, screeching like a wild cat. "Cowards, all of you. Filthy things."

She slammed the door with another scream and leaned back against it, breathing hard. "Damn...low power...pests..." A hollow pounding echoed in her ears, and she stumbled towards the bed, falling face first on the lush blankets. She rolled on her back, grabbing the front of her dress and ripping it open. With her upper chest exposed, she dug her sharp nails into her skin and pulled, breaking her ribs apart with ease. In the center of her chest, next to her real heart, lay a flawless ruby as big as her fist, beating hard enough to shake her whole body. Laid open, white and red streaks of light swirled up and out of the ruby, into the air, spinning in broad spirals and dissipating into blurs and finally nothing. The ruby heart slowed its pace and returned to a soft beat to match her real heart.

"Damn," she whispered, without the strength to even raise her voice. She lay her hand on the cavity in her chest, and the wound sealed again without leaving any marks. When she sat up, no blood stained the blankets.

Arin looked over her tattered dress and giggled. Ah, the high fashion price of great power.

~*~*~*~

Sarah woke up with sunlight poking through the briars and hitting her face. Beside her, Jareth still slept soundlessly, his breathing less labored than it had been the night before. She lay her hand on his forehead, then his cheek, and smiled. The fever was gone. She looked around herself, checking first to make sure the faerie was still asleep under her blanket in her lantern, and then to see that the tablet was still beside them. Satisfied they were alone, she looked back at her companion.

"Your clothes are really starting to suffer," she said.

Jareth opened his eyes for a few seconds, then closed them again.

"And your hair...I wish we could stop off at a river or a waterfall or something. I mean, we could both use a good rinse. Dirt and leaves don't look too hot as hair accessories."

He didn't move.

She plucked a few crumbling leaves out of his hair. "C'mon, you said you'd be fine. Of course, you said you'd only get tired, so maybe you were lying about that, too."

Jareth turned on his side, away from her. "Be quiet...I'm trying to sleep."

Sarah smacked his shoulder and sat up, crossing her legs. "You rotten little...I thought you were unconscious."

"Congratulations...your voice woke the dead."

"'The dead'?" She leaned over him and put her fingers on his neck, checking his pulse. "You weren't dead, were you? Don't tell me I'm talking to a corpse."

He swatted her hand away. "Calm down, I'm fine."

She breathed a sigh of relief, but a moment later she heard his breathing slow again. She grabbed his shoulder and shook him awake. "Don't you fall back to sleep. It's morning, time to get up."

He only buried his face deeper in his folded arms. "Sarah, it should come as no surprise to you that I'm not a morning person."

"Is Arin?"

Silence.

He sighed. "Oh yes. Almost forgot that." He pushed himself upright, his eyes still somewhat closed. "Did we have any winged attackers while I was out?"

"Nope." She sat up straight and heaved the stone scale closer, tipping the lantern over in the process and rousing a high pitched rant from the faerie. "Whups, sorry 'bout that. Jareth, look, I got the scale you wanted."

He glanced at the slab of rock, and his eyes widened. "You actually...managed...did you have to fight him for it? Did he hurt you?"

She shook her head. "No, I just picked it up off the ground. He wouldn't have chased me if the jewels hadn't stuck to my shoes."

"The scale was on the ground?" 

"Uh huh. There were a bunch of them scattered all over the place."

Jareth frowned. "Damn. That's not good."

She brought her legs up under herself and leaned forward. "What do you mean?"

He held his hand up and blew a bubble out. Both of them watched it begin to replicate. "For the rocks themselves to come falling apart...and from such a strong dragon...She doesn't need to slash and burn my labyrinth anymore. Her corruption's spreading to the whole land." He shook his head and made a move to stand. He only made it halfway, falling to one knee and panting for breath. 

Sarah put her arms around his shoulders and held him still. "Jareth, you're not one hundred percent after that hit. You've got to rest."

"No time," he said. "Arin's already killing the labyrinth. Pretty soon there won't be much of anything left to save."

"And how're we gonna get there? You can't just disappear, and you're not strong enough to walk through the maze."

"No, but I can reach the card dogs." He tried to push his way up again and had to catch himself as he fell. 

Sarah shook her head and put his good arm over her shoulders. "Hang on, I got ya." She stood up, bringing him with her. "Why do we have to go there?"

"One of the tunnels leads right to the castle. And at least one of us knows which one."

"You don't have to rub it in."

She helped him out of the briar patch, picking up the faerie as they went. The scale floated just behind them.

"I'm not. I never expected you to get so far as the oubliette." He laughed. "Of course, trying to use reason in the labyrinth...that was funny."

"I should just drop you," she said. "Or throw you over my shoulder."

He stared at her, his jaw dropping slightly. "You couldn't."

"Oh, I could. You're light enough. Keep up the comments and you'll be watching the trip backwards."

He raised one eyebrow. "I just might like the view," he muttered.

"Huh?"

"Nevermind," he said, looking ahead. "We're heading back in, so watch for dark sprites."

"Right," she said. _What did he mean by that?_ Did he mean watching the labyrinth shift behind them? That certainly could be interesting.

~*~*~*~

The endless fountains of water that had previously spilled over the walls and fonts now only trickled or had dried up altogether. The tiles, now dingy and gray, cracked and crumbled as they walked over them. Instead of weeds and overgrowth, dust and rot now covered everything. Even the air inside the labyrinth was different than before. 

"But we were only gone one night," she whispered. Her voice echoed down the corridor.

"I doubt anything is in one piece anymore."

They followed after the bubble leading them and started down a new corridor of broken yellow slabs of stone. Large chunks had crumbled off, leaving the paths strewn with jagged rocks and yellow dust. At the first boulder in the way, Jareth and Sarah both scrambled up, but Sarah had to help him down, and even then he nearly collapsed. His boots scraped on the ground and he leaned hard against her.

"Are you sure you can keep going?" she asked.

"We're almost there," he breathed. "Just a little bit further..."

They went over three more boulders and down another mile of corridors, cutting through breaks and cracks, before coming out into a clearing of cobblestones and bricks. Sarah turned around.

"That's odd," she said. "It's not moving behind us."

Jareth didn't answer, and she turned around to see why. Scraps of paper littered the area and blew around in dust devils. She watched them move and noticed three distinct colors, white, red and black. She pressed her knuckles against her mouth.

The card dogs.

Wind howled as it picked up force through the corridors, pushing the dust in with the paper. She helped Jareth lean against a wall and then stooped, drawing an arrow on a nearby brick. 

"I don't think anything's going to move it," he said.

"It's worth a try." She stuck the lipstick back in her pocket and shouldered his weight again. "Jareth, when I was here before, were you watching me? The whole time?"

He smiled, only a little. "Most of the time. I had to watch your brother as well."

They walked towards the doors, and when Jareth put his hand out to open one, the rotted wood crumbled and sloughed onto the floor, the metal hinges and knocker clattering on top of the mess.

"Wait a minute," she said. "This is the door I went in before. It's the wrong one."

"They change every few minutes. The bubble says this is the right one." He inhaled and coughed a few times. "Besides, I can smell the air from the castle."

"Hm?" She breathed deep and grimaced. Sour, coppery smells...

They started down the corridor. She turned back once, just before they went too far, and looked at the ground. The arrow hadn't moved.

~*~*~*~

Arin ignored the goblins scattering out of her way and walked out of her room, heading down a long hallway strewn with dust and cobwebs. Windows lined the hall, their sills covered with dried blood and reeking of the decaying corpses beneath them. At the far end of the hall she came to a staircase and started up, placing her hands on the steps as the steep incline forced her to all fours. The steps spiraled for hundreds of feet in total darkness until, at the very top, a dim ray of sunlight lit the last few steps. 

"I'd knock the damn thing down if I didn't need it," she said as she stood upright at the top of the castle's largest turret. 

The labyrinth lay before her in all directions, a wasteland of broken walls, shattered tiles and burned out hedges. Some spots of growth remained, especially where Jareth's annoying crystal spheres kept replicating. The briar woods and swamp were intact, as were bits and pieces of the maze.

"I have yet to conquer the underground," she said. She stepped up on top of the raised ledge circling the tower and scanned the wreckage for any sign of movement. "And where are you, little brother? Still playing at returning savior?" She frowned as she turned and turned again. "Mm. Where _are_ you?"

She glanced down at the deserted goblin city, then at the front gates, then at the windows on the castle's first floor. She stared at the fountain she knew led to the underground, but the top was secure, the body of the man with a bird on his head still slung over the edge. A few of her dark sprites fluttered around his face, eating and replenishing the blood that continuously dripped from their bodies.

"They can't make it back to the outer wall, not with that scale." She snapped her fingers. "Of course, those damn paper dogs." Arin kicked off a fist-sized chunk of the ledge and jumped, placing her foot on the lump of masonry and then commanding the stone to support her weight. She kept her balance on the rock as it sailed through the air, carrying her over the broken cobblestones and scorched earth and coming to rest in the flurry of confetti before the two archways.

She picked out a bit of paper floating around her head and held it between her fingers, tearing it in half again. The sprites did good work. "Now, little brother, which way did you go?"

Both doors had rotted and fallen apart, but she knew one of them had been caused by the wear of the wind around it. The other had been touched by human hands. "Even now your little maze tries to hide you," she said, folding her arms. "Dead things trying to hide dead things."

She stepped through one and glanced down the long corridor, its two walls tumbled down and vanishing to a point. A break in the wall let her cross to the other corridor, also vanishing at the far end but with a well camouflaged hole in the center of the floor. She leaned over and stared down. Not a flicker of motion, not a breeze or sound.

Arin smiled. She tore a bit of her already tattered dress and bit her finger, wiping the blood off with the torn rag. She dangled the cloth over the hole and let it go, turning on her heel while she walked away.

When she reached the rotted doors again, she turned and whispered one word.

"Ignite."

Jets of flame and light shot up out of the hole, flashing so hot the surrounding walls turned black, and bits of burned flesh floated down to the ground.

tbc... 


	3. Gryphons dragoned

****

Broken Wings Part 3

Sarah wished she could open the lantern and let the faerie out, or at least hug Jareth closer. Before the light had been a blessing, showing her the way through caves and forests. Now the dark walls around her sucked up the light and muffled any sound, and felt like they might try to eat their more substantial guests.

"Where are we?" she whispered.

"The catacombs." He leaned his head on her shoulder and stifled a yawn. "They run under most of the labyrinth."

She shivered in the cold air and adjusted her hold on him. "Catacombs? Isn't that where people get buried?"

"Shelved, more accurately," he said. "This isn't a place for bodies, though. That's the necropolis."

"Then what's been laid to rest here?"

"Memories." He lay his hand on the wall and ran his fingers along the rough edges of the brickwork. "What the labyrinth used to be, how it began, the lineage of its kings...it is all here, written in relief and painted as gigantic murals. In some corners sculpted statues show each king, each type of inhabitant."

"But how can you tell?" She held up the faerie, who shrieked as the lantern went out into the darkness, but her light disappeared into the wall, giving only a glimpse of a shade of blue and gray. "You can't see anything."

"You can feel it, if you're not afraid to touch these things. The paint has its own texture." A breeze whipped up through the still air, and he froze. "Listen."

Sarah held her breath. Even the faerie stopped chattering.

Vapors rushed past her face and pulled at her clothes as they passed by, breathing in hollow voices. 

__

In the third cycle of being, three days after the black unicorn died, the goblin king shed his skin.

The voices passed. The air died again. 

Sarah exhaled. "What was that?"

"Another memory. It happens from time to time," he said.

"You've been down here a lot, haven't you?" 

Jareth smiled. "Yes. It tells me a lot about the labyrinth that everyone else has forgotten."

She reached her hand out and touched the wall as they walked and skimmed her fingers over the raised letters she couldn't see. "What did they mean when they said the goblin king shed his skin?"

He closed his eyes and forced his legs to keep moving even though his boots dragged after each other. "I think...I think it means that the earliest of the goblin kings were once goblins themselves. After awhile the labyrinth changed them, made them more like...like I am."

Sarah felt his pace slow down and she hefted him just a little higher over her shoulders. "But if the labyrinth can do so much by itself, why did it need to make a king?"

"In case something like Arin comes around." He gave a weak laugh. "And to bring visitors, I suppose."

"Visitors?"

"Well, what's the point of having a maze if no one's going to walk through it." This time he couldn't hide his yawn, and his arms relaxed even further.

Sarah shifted his light weight again. "That's it, we need to stop and rest before you fall asleep."

"What happened to throwing me over your shoulder?"

"I practically have." She looked down the hallway and only saw more darkness. "Is there a safe place to stop around here?"

"Yes, in the necropolis. It shouldn't be much further now."

"Necropolis? I thought that's where we were now."

He shook his head. "No, a necropolis is a city for the dead. We are merely in the labyrinth's catacomb now." He opened his eyes for a moment, blinking a few times. "Look, you can just make out the glow."

"Glow..." Where before she'd only seen a pitch black, she could now make out the flickering glow of torches. "Hey, that wasn't there before. We didn't move _that _fast."

"No, but the catacombs did." With the end in sight, he put a little more effort into his step. "The same way it shortened the distance we had to travel from the door to here." He frowned and looked back over her shoulder. "Odd, though."

"What is?"

"That it moved us so fast. Usually the walk would take hours."

They came to an archway flanked by torches and stepped through, coming into a large domed room. Torches lined the room, spaced evenly both along the sides and up in rows to the ceiling, illuminating the ruddy brown walls and the carved decorative patterns around...she nearly dropped Jareth...around the skeleton filled niches. She looked around the room, and the shelves took up so much structural area that she wondered how they didn't collapse. 

"Do you have places like this in your world?" Jareth asked.

She nodded and helped him sit down against the wall. "Yes, but we don't use them anymore. The ones that do exist are very old," she said as he sat down beside him. The scale floating behind them came around and lowered to the ground, tipping one way so that the bubbles could escape before the other end hit the floor. Of no more use, the bubbles scattered out of the necropolis and into the catacombs.

"So is this place," he said. "I think this is actually where the labyrinth started, slowly working its way out, branching in different directions, creating new paths, reshaping itself."

"Then this is the heart of the labyrinth?"

"The labyrinth has many hearts. But yes, this is one of them."

The cold temperature in the air worked its way into Sarah's clothing and chilled her skin. She set the lantern between herself and Jareth and then leaned against his good arm. Neither said anything for awhile, listening to the crackle of lit torches and watching the shadows move on the wall.

"Do you think your sister is looking for us?"

Jareth would have shrugged, but one arm ached and the other lay pinned under Sarah. "Most likely. She's evil but she isn't stupid. That could be why the labyrinth moved us so quickly."

"Could she make it through the catacombs?"

He shook his head. "No. She knows it's down here, but if she tried to walk through, she'd be lost forever. The catacombs would twist and turn and she'd never know it." He laughed. "It'd be damn convenient if she tried."

"So of course she won't."

He sighed and closed his eyes. "Go to sleep, Sarah."

She nodded and lay her head on his shoulder. "Jareth?"

"What?"

"How will we know when it's morning?"

"Who says it's night?"

"Oh. Right."

"Go to sleep. Tomorrow we finish this." _One way or the other._

~*~*~*~

Sarah woke up with something warm on top of her. When she opened her eyes, she first noticed the faerie still in her lantern and the scale nearby. The torches were still burning. No one else had come in. She looked around at the shelves full of skeletons. Thank goodness, no one had left the room either. She moved to sit straight and lay one hand on something soft.

"Hm?" She looked down and found Jareth snuggled up to her. He had one leg thrown over hers and had spooned his body up against hers, but it didn't look like he'd done it on purpose. "Jareth?"

"Mm..."

"Wake up."

He shifted, but only to snuggle closer.

__

He must be used to sleeping in, Sarah thought. "I said wake up," and she nudged him.

"Mm...what?"

"Come on. You're harder to wake up than Toby." She pushed him straight and got to her feet. "What time is it?"

Jareth grumbled something and rubbed his eyes. "How the hell should I know? It's impossible to tell in here."

__

Definitely not a morning person.

With all the commotion, the faerie woke up and shined even brighter. At the same time she started cursing for the cold and wrapped her blanket around herself again. Sarah ignored her and looked back at Jareth.

"Your face looks better," she said.

"What?"

"The scratches around your eyes. They're almost gone."

He raised his fingers and felt around his face, then noticed how she was still staring and turned away. "We'd better get going. There's not much time."

"How are you feeling? Has the poison worn off?"

He stood up and moved his good arm. "It's a little sore, but nothing else."

"Nothing else?" She put her hands on her hips and faced him. "Yesterday you couldn't walk on your own."

"I was exhausted fighting off that venom." Jareth walked past her to the middle of the room. "Granted, I'm not going to be leaping tall buildings in a single bound, but I am up to moving around again."

"Leap tall..." She smiled and leaned against the wall. "Jareth?"

"Yes?"

"How often do you come to my world?" 

He shrugged. "Once in awhile."

"You like the movies, I take it."

Jareth blinked. "How...?"

"I don't think too many labyrinth dwellers know about Superman." She squashed down her smirk as his cheeks reddened slightly.

"It gets boring around here sometimes," he said. "They help take my mind off things."

"Do you just pop into the theater in full Goblin King gear, or do you tone down the clothes a bit?"

"One of my closets makes whatever kind of clothes I need. When I leave, I have the same type of clothes any normal human does. And I only 'pop in' when the room is dark so no one sees me."

Now she smiled. "Well, when this is all over, maybe I could go with you. It's no fun going alone."

He looked down, but the corners of his mouth twitched up. "No, it isn't." He sighed and stared around the floor again. "Are you ready?"

She nodded. "Am I gonna have to lug that scale around again?"

"I'm afraid so. I don't want Arin feeling my crystals floating around so close." He moved to the center of the room and studied the symbols at his feet. "Bring it and the faerie, will you?"

She slipped the lantern over one arm and then hefted the scale up before joining him. "What're we going to do with the scale anyway? Throw it on her?"

"Quiet. This takes a lot of concentration." 

Sarah looked at him and opened her mouth, then looked away again. She spotted the faerie breathing in, about to shriek her lungs out, and she shook the lantern so the faerie plopped down on her rear end. Then she noticed she couldn't see the faerie anymore. She looked up just in time to see the torch flames die down to glowing embers and nothing at all. All she could hear was Jareth breathing softly, whispering something, a prayer or spell, and her own heartbeat growing louder in her ears. A breeze blew through her hair, but the whisper of sound only made the silence stronger.

A violet shimmer along the wall caught her attention, and she watched as the torches slowly grew back in strength, this time flaming purple. As the odd shade grew stronger and filled the room, the light literally dripped out of the fire and ran down the walls to the floor, where they lit up a pattern of crevices Sarah hadn't noticed before.

Liquid light filled the symbols and raced to the center of the room, illuminating a set of circles that spiraled inwards until finally coming to rest circling around her and Jareth. The light rushed like water in its canals and sloshed over the edges. A breeze blew in from the catacombs outside, gradually gaining strength. At first it only pushed her hair around her face, but a few moments later it was strong enough to push her one way if she relaxed. Thunder rumbled in the air until she couldn't hear the wind anymore. She looked at Jareth and saw that his eyes had turned purple as well and glowed as much as the torches.

Motion along the wall caught her attention, and when she looked she spotted a skeleton sitting up in its niche, infused with purple light. As she scanned the room, she found that every skeleton had sat up and was now staring at the little group in the middle.

And all at once, they began to sing. The voices reminded her of monk chants, but the sound reverberated and vibrated the walls, and the resultant hum, much like that of a tuning fork, drowned out the thunder, drowned out the wind, drowned out the water light around her feet, drowned out even the singing that caused it, until all of the shadows and violet light and rumbling noise disappeared into one long note, and Sarah wondered if they had really started singing or if they had been singing forever and she just hadn't heard them before. 

The light flared up into a star that blinded her, and she closed her eyes.

Someone lay a hand on her shoulder. "You can look now, Sarah. We're here."

She opened her eyes. The necropolis was gone, replaced by a new room with gray stone walls and two large windows. A huge bed sat in the center, with a wardrobe against one wall and a table with a wash basin near the other wall.

"Are we in the castle?" she asked.

Jareth nodded. "Yes. And now I have absolutely no idea where Arin is."

Sarah hefted the dragon scale again and took a deep breath. "Where do you want to fight her?"

"In the Eschler chamber," he said. "But the staircases might not be floating anymore. They might have fallen to the ground by now."

"Only one way to know," she said. "Is there a way there from here?"

"Yes, my room leads to every part of the castle. Arin might not even know the door exists." He walked to the wall clear of furniture, put his hand on one stone and pushed. A mass of masonry slid to one side, revealing a dark staircase.

"Handy," Sarah said.

"Not really. It takes me anywhere, but I have to go through five different rooms and six other magick doors to get back here." He put his hand on the wall and started down. "Let's go before she finds us."

Sarah had just stepped in after him when they heard the bedroom door open and someone come in. Sarah didn't wait to see who it was, as she had a pretty damn good guess, and rushed forward, sighing with relief when she heard the stone door close behind her.

"Don't relax yet," Jareth said. "Hurry up!"

Something heavy slammed against the wall behind them, making the stones shake and mortar crumble off. "Jareth! Jareth, get back here, you coward. I'll flay your skin right off. I'll make your eyes boil in your skull."

The screams grew faint as Jareth and Sarah ran down the steps.

"Can she do that?"

He almost laughed. "Oh yes. That's why we're running."

Inside the bedroom, Arin kicked the wall that would not budge. "It's not fair! It's my castle now. Do as I say." She banged her fists against the door and only managed to dent the stone, not break it. "Stupid damn magick..." She hit the wall one more time, but when she stood up again, she grinned. "Oh...I know where you're going. Oh, yes, little brother, big sister isn't so slow. Your favorite room of all." She hiked up her dress and sprinted down the hall, racing to get to the main room before Jareth and Sarah could.

~*~*~*~

Jareth slammed his shoulder into the door at the end of the staircase, and it burst open, breaking its hinges and cracking down the middle. A few steps behind him, Sarah panted for breath and shifted the scale in her hands again. The faerie in the lantern would have cursed or yelled, but she'd been thrown back and forth inside the lantern like a ping pong ball, and now she only curled up on her side and wished the spinning would stop.

"Is it still up?" Sarah asked as she looked over Jareth's shoulder.

He nodded and pointed. "For the most part. There are a few more stairs floating around the bottom, but it looks like it's all in one piece. Now, when we start moving through here--"

"Jareth, I can't. You know I can't walk around in this room, not like you can."

"Yes, you can," he said. "You couldn't before because you think too much like a human. You think if the floor ends then you'll fall. You won't. When you come to a ledge, just keep walking without trying to jump. You'll just flip around to the other side, that's all."

"But I'm not like you. I _am_ human."

"You've used my crystals, haven't you? You even broke through one of them before. Just have faith and believe--"

"Jareth! Jareth, where are you?"

They both looked up at the closed door a few staircases above them. Heavy footsteps pounded on the floor as Arin moved around.

"She's in the main hall," Jareth whispered. "She'll be in here any minute. Come on." He motioned for her to follow and started down the first walkway.

"But wait, what are we supposed to do with the scale?"

He stopped and looked at her. "I thought you knew."

"I wouldn't ask if I didn't."

"It's a dragon scale on a griffin's heart. Dragons eat griffins."

Sarah blinked. "But we don't have the whole damn dragon."

"It'll do."

"So you're telling me we're about to fight someone who can make our eyes boil and all we've got is a piece of dragon, and it's all supposed to work because the whole dragon would eat a whole griffin?"

He stood up straight and tilted his head. "You make it sound like it won't work."

She shook her head and stuck one hip out. "Dammit, Jareth, if we survive this, I'm gonna--"

The doorknob turned and the lock clicked open.

"Time to move." Jareth walked down the ledge until he reached the very end, then walked over the edge and moved upside down underneath Sarah. "Come on, before she sees you."

She headed to the very edge, but when she looked down, the twenty foot drop to the next walkway froze her stiff. Her muscles tightened and she stopped breathing. She held the scale so hard she wondered why it didn't break in half.

The faerie looked up at the door and saw it start to open, and she remembered the dark sprite that had nearly killed her and the blackened hedges and the dead things they'd had to pass on the way through the labyrinth. She didn't remember seeing any other faeries, and that scared her the most. She looked at Sarah and wondered why she didn't move out of sight. The door opened further, and the faerie started jumping up and down, chattering and hitting the lantern with her fists. Open the door, move, anything, just get out of the bitch's line of sight.

The noise broke Sarah out of her fear. She swallowed a deep breath, screwed her eyes shut, and stepped over the edge.

Her feet didn't connect with anything, and the wind rushed around her as she fell. She opened her eyes in shock, but at least she couldn't force a scream out as she plummeted. The faerie tensed up and just stared in surprise as they went down. 

__

Think of a happy thought and fly, flashed into Sarah's mind, but she couldn't think of anything. She spotted a staircase coming up in front of her, but it was upside down to her.

"Just pretend your going backward," she said to herself. _Like you already jumped off, and now you're rewinding the tape._ She turned in midair, leaned forward and planted her feet against the cold stone rushing by her.

And she stopped falling. Sarah squeaked when she felt herself stand straight, and the faerie squeaked as well. Sarah looked around. The room didn't seem any different from this angle, except that now she couldn't see the door. Which was probably a good thing.

"Jareth..." Arin stepped inside and locked the door behind herself. "Jareth, are you in here?"

Sarah crouched down and held her breath. Inside the lantern, the faerie wrapped her blanket around herself to lessen her glow. Neither of them moved.

"Oh, I know you're in here," Arin said. "And who was that I saw with you? I knew you must have some help, but a human? Really, little brother, are you that weak now? Did I hurt you so much?" She walked out on the first ledge and gazed down at the huge chamber. "Is the great Goblin King in so much trouble he needs a little girl who probably hasn't turned two hundred yet?"

Sarah frowned. Did Arin think humans lived that long?

"They miss us in the second kingdom, you know." Arin kept walking, moved upside under her ledge and then heading down the wall. "Our family was once great and powerful there. What good is this insane labyrinth you insist on protecting, when compared to the influence we wield amongst our own kind?"

"What good is influence when I have real power in this labyrinth?" Jareth asked, still out of sight.

Arin stopped and looked around, but she couldn't see him. "This is your real power? You can't even face me. And now you dally with humans? No wonder father hated you."

"As I recall, sister, he wasn't too fond of you, either. You're just jealous mother liked me better."

Arin hissed and stamped her foot. "That isn't true. Why would she love a little fool like you?"

"Who knows what went through that woman's mind. But at least she had one."

Sarah could feel the energy crackling through the air as Arin screeched. _Dammit, he's just pissing her off now._

"You arrogant weakling..." A bolt of pink lightning zapped against a wall and cut a deep groove into the stone. Another one cut a staircase in half. "I'll fry your skin to a crisp."

"You keep saying that. You haven't actually done it, though."

Arin screamed and leaped from the wall, arms flailing to keep her balance as she flew through the air. Sarah felt something hit the other side of the staircase she was sitting on and cringed. Arin walked up the stairs and stopped at the very top. Sarah looked up and lost all her breath. She could practically see up Arin's skirt. One look down...

Jareth chanced a quick look from the ledge he was perched under and breathed in quick. He could see his sister facing away from him not ten feet away, but he could also see Sarah huddled at Arin's feet. His skin chilled.

__

Move, damn it, he thought, and he motioned at Sarah to scurry to the other side of the stairs at least. She couldn't see him, since her eyes were shut, but she started to move on her own, backing away along the stairs. The faerie glowed dimmer than an ember and tried to cover that up as well. 

Neither of them made a sound. 

Until Sarah's foot scraped the stone, sending a bit of dust crumbling away. She opened her eyes and hoped Arin hadn't heard. 

Arin grinned and bent over, staring Sarah square in the eye. "Well there you are. Jareth's little pet human, hmm? And what's that big stone he's got you carrying?"

Jareth jumped from his ledge and landed softly on the top of the staircase. Careful to keep his breath hushed, he took each step one at a time so his boots didn't tap.

"Ooh, you have pretty jewelry. Such a little girl to be playing such grown up games." Arin raised her hand and extended it out. "You should've stayed in your world, human. You aren't welcome in this one." 

Time slowed. Sarah looked at Arin's hand, saw all the smooth skin and the light creases of the head and life line. The heart line broke off in several places. Her fingers stood straight, without any calluses or scars. But the positioning told Sarah exactly what would happen next.

__

She's just like Jareth was, she thought. _Just as self-centered. Just as powerful even. The only difference is that he was never going to kill me. It's just like fighting him. It's just like fighting Jareth. It's just like before. Another untold danger...another hardship unnumbered..._

"Neither are you." Sarah stood up and forced her legs to straighten. "Your evil doesn't belong here."

"You're rather impertinent for one about to die."

Sarah tightened her hold on the dragon scale. _He wouldn't have wanted it if it couldn't do anything._ "I've fought my way here to the castle, with its exiled king, to take back the labyrinth you've stolen."

Electricity flickered in Arin's hand.

"For my will is as strong as yours, and my kingdom is as great..." _and unborrowed,_ she thought.

Arin laughed. "You think I'll hesitate with this little show of backbone? You're as pathetic as my brother." She sent the lightning straight at Sarah's heart.

The faerie shrieked, too scared to close her eyes.

Jareth lunged up the last few steps.

Sarah raised the scale just in time to meet the lightning. 

At first none of them moved. Sarah had expected the energy to bounce back and strike Arin, just like in all the cartoons she'd seen growing up in the eighties. Jareth couldn't see what was happening, but he knew it had to be rather spectacular to make Arin gape and furrow her brow like a cavewoman. Even the faerie didn't know what to feel, happy to be alive but confused as hell as to why.

Red and pink energy swirled from Arin's hand and poured into the scale without affecting the stone or Sarah behind it. It merely sunk in like going through a doorway. Only about five seconds later did it reappear on the other side of the scale, still sliding into Sarah's heart but no longer as volatile lightning. White light came out of the scale and moved into the human without any pain.

Arin snapped out of her daze and tried to close her hand, but more energy kept draining out. "What the hell..."

Sarah looked up without a smile or frown. "You have no power over us."

Arin opened her mouth but nothing came out.

Jareth chuckled. "It's okay, Arin."

She turned to face him, still losing magick through one hand.

He reached his hand back and thrust it threw Arin's chest, grabbing the stone beside her real heart, and pulled. There was a sucking sound, like a rock coming out of mud, and then he was holding the griffin's heart with blood running down his arm.

"It hurt when she said that to me, too." 

His sister collapsed at his feet.

The magick stopped flowing, and the light flowed for only a few seconds more before fading away. The scale turned ashen gray and crumbled in Sarah's hand, and she sifted the ashes through her fingers, letting them fly down the chamber beneath them.

"It's over," she whispered.

"Not quite."

Sarah looked at Jareth and followed his gaze to his sister's body. She cursed when she saw Arin's torn chest still rising with each slow breath. "She's still alive?"

"I only took out the griffin's heart." He showed off the ruby in his hand. "Her real heart's still alive and well."

Sarah looked down at the woman at her feet. Already the wound was closing. "Will she have any power left?"

"Oh, no. It's all yours. That's what the scale's for. You have all the griffin's power," he flipped the ruby in his hand once. "Without the little nuisance of the griffin's heart. She'll probably be as vindictive as ever, though."

Sarah closed her eyes and put her fingers to the bridge of her nose, fighting the oncoming headache. What a pain, having to deal with this bitch...even...now...

She stood up straight. With her eyes closed, another sense blossomed. She felt something along the outer reaches of her mind, and she extended out a little, feeling around what she now recognized as corridors in the labyrinth, hidden recesses and underground caverns and forest lakes and cobblestone courtyards...and dead bodies littering the every nook.

"I know how to deal with her," Sarah whispered. She bent and picked Arin up, then turned around and faced the empty space. "So she'll never hurt anyone ever again."

She tossed Arin into the air, where she floated, still unconscious but moaning and moving her head side to side, about to wake up. Sarah raised her hand and summoned a crystal sphere in her hand, letting it grow larger and larger until it could hold someone. She pushed it forward, and it moved to encapsulate Arin's body. Once it had her, it shrunk and crushed her down and shrunk and disappeared, taking her with it.

Sarah breathed out, and her shoulders slumped. "Now it's over?"

He nodded. "Tired?"

"Yeah." She stared at him and blinked. "Now what? You're back, she's dead...what do we do now?"

He gave her a half smile and a tired sigh. "Now...we try to rebuild."

~*~*~*~

Thick clouds covered the moon and the stars. Sarah and Jareth walked through the empty goblin city with the faerie giving off their only light. Sarah pressed closer to Jareth and watched the shadows move around them. The faerie's light flickered over the broken bricks and burnt rooftops and splinted sticks of what used to be goblin houses and goblin kitchens and goblin beds.

"It feels so lonely," Sarah whispered. "Is anyone left up here?"

He shook his head. "Maybe a few that couldn't run, and she never found. Not many."

"Can we bring them back?"

"I don't think so. Everything has limits." He stared at himself, one arm still in its sling and the cut slowly healing on his other arm. "I won't be back to full power for a little while."

"So what do we do? Will the others come back soon?"

"You mean the ones that ran to the underground? They'll come back as soon as they know it's safe. Ludo's probably telling them now."

"That's fast. We just killed her."

"Yes, but anyone could have picked up the amount of energy moving in that room. I'm sure they're on their way already. The labyrinth is quick to call back its own."

Sarah turned around and looked behind them. "It's not moving at all. It isn't dead, is it?"

"It's resting now." He turned and looked at her. "Sarah, I have to ask you something. The magick that Arin gave you...would you use it for me?"

She tilted her head. "What do you mean?"

"All of this," and he swept his hand around at the labyrinth. "It's too tired to repair itself. I can't even begin to heal it until I'm back up to full strength. But if you gave it just some of what you have...I promise it won't hurt, and you won't lose all of--"

She put her fingers up to his lips, and he quieted. "It's all right. But I don't know how. You'll have to show me."

He smirked. "Did I have to show you how to create a crystal?"

She shook her head. "But I saw you make them. I just copied that."

"Have you ever seen fireworks?"

"Fireworks? You have those here?"

His smirk turned into smile and he grabbed her hand. "Come on. We can do this best from the clock tower."

She smiled and let him tug her forward, the faerie jostling in her lantern. "What clock tower?"

They pulled up short at the center of the goblin city, at the foot of a clock tower that would have been forty feet tall if the top half hadn't been blown off. The face lay on its side a few feet away, the hands pointing at the eleventh hour.

"Are you sure it's safe?" she asked. "It might be unstable."

"We'll be fine." He opened a door on the side and led her in. Nothing like the castle turret, these steps went up in a gradual spire until they both could look out over the cracked top twenty feet up. Sarah leaned over the broken wall while Jareth sat up on the corner and let his legs dangle. "This way we have a decent view."

Sarah stared out over the labyrinth. From here she could see the twisting corridors still standing, the crushed rubble of destroyed paths, burned gardens and even the far wall that circled the maze, charred black. "Just copy fireworks, right?"

He nodded. "Try it."

She raised her hand. A bit of electricity coalesced at her fingertips and sparked out, but it fizzled in the air and disappeared. Jareth opened his mouth to offer some advice, but the look on her face kept him quiet. She stamped her foot and pointed her finger back up at the sky. "Get up there, dammit."

Blue energy shot out of her hand and whistled into the air, exploding in a flash of neon sparkles that drifted to the ground and soaked into the dust. Grass shot up with flowers complete with dewdrops, and one of the broken cobblestones mended.

Sarah spotted the sudden sprout and giggled, jumping up and down while she clapped. "All right, let's rock!" Colors shot out of her, emerald green, ocean blue, daffodil yellow, indian paintbrush red, royal purple, mother of pearl, all streaking through the sky in various directions, north, east, south, west, exploding loud enough to rumble the fragile walls and shake them back into shape. Wherever a glowing ember touched the ground, stones came back together, dried mushrooms or blackened hedges filled out and colorized. The air filled with whistles and Sarah's joyful cries. She sent up white spinners she'd seen at Chinese New Year celebrations, she sent up patriotic red white and blue from the fourth of July. She released Mardi Gras mask designs and unicorn shapes. The sky swirled like Starry Night and oil paint hurled at the stratosphere, dripping water colors back to turn the dust into black mud and swirl something living out of the mix. 

All over the labyrinth, in sight and out, blood and bodies sunk into the ground, heading for the necropolis or any patch of ground that seemed comfortable. The walls couldn't reach their previous heights and left their tops unfinished. Gates lacked their usual ornamental knobs and markings. The tiles still weren't turning her lipstick marks, but the tiles were all in one piece now. She fired a huge burst at the dried waterways, like a river from her hand, and screamed for joy when the fountains erupted again, spouting water dozens of feet into the air and splashing down, washing away the blood and burns.

She turned to say something to Jareth, but the look on his face stopped her. He stared up at the colors still blazing in the sky, his mouth slightly open as if he had taken a deep breath and forgotten to release it. His eyes were wide. He leaned forward and scanned the sky for every burst.

Sarah smiled. He looked a little like Toby. Not quite, but a little.

Light erupted, not from her fingertips, but from a far part of the labyrinth. She wanted to take a look and found herself slowly rising into the air, lifted by some pressure under her feet. She gasped and tried to grab something before she rose too high. Jareth's hand closed around hers, but he didn't hold her down. He smiled and pushed her farther until he had to let her hand slip away.

Still letting more fireworks go, sending neon ribbons around the moon, she gazed at the white light coming from the labyrinth itself. She squinted, and spotted the fountain she and Jareth had climbed down...a few days ago? God, it seemed so long. Like a spotlight pointed at the sky, the light began to flicker with shadows as something made its way up the ladder.

Faeries flew out first like a swarm of butterflies, followed by a real swarm of butterflies and then flocks of birds. Sarah wondered how they had flown underneath the ground. Next came fireys, goblins, larger creatures she couldn't identify...and then a few she knew on a first name basis. She counted. Ludo, Hoggle, Sir Didymus, his steed...she shrieked and did a flip in the air. She drifted back down to Jareth, all alone in the darkness of a broken clock.

"They're alive," she said. "Not all of them, but there are so many of them."

He smiled and stood. "Will you stay for the celebration, then? I know they'd love to see you again. They'll all want to know how you did it."

She put her hand on his face. "How we did it."

Jareth shook his head. "No. You're bringing it back."

"I couldn't have known how to do anything if you hadn't walked me through it. Come with me." 

"No, they don't want to see me. Besides, I need to return to the castle. There are things I need to start moving again, the water wheel clocks, the scrying pools..."

"Jareth."

He looked at her. "You're going to leave again. And I have work to do."

She smiled. "You know something?"

"I know a great many things."

"And for all that, you don't know how easy you are to read." She lifted a few inches off the ground so she could look him in the eye. "You will always be a rotten liar."

"Sarah?"

"You're going to need help fixing everything, aren't you?" She tapped his broken arm. "And you still have one broken wing. You still need help flying."

"I..." he looked down. "I...are you sure? You have a life outside this labyrinth."

"Yeah, my own little empty house in the rough part of town with my own stalker...oh, and dead rose bushes, too." 

Jareth smiled and stood straight. "I usually have climbing roses around my bedroom window..."

She paused. "Our bedroom window?"

"...I will be your slave."

A dull roar built of laughing and cheering grew louder as it neared the goblin city. Sarah smiled at the glow from the faeries lighting the way.

"I don't think we'll be alone for much longer," she said. "Stay here with me?"

"You'll stay beside me?"

"I promise." He looked up again. "It looks like there's a lot of light coming our way."

Sarah grinned and lit a little glowing puffball in her hand. "That's no problem anymore."

"Then maybe we should let our faerie go?"

"Oh!" She looked down at the lantern and the faerie with her hands pressed against the glass, wings fluttering as her sisters approached. "Think she'll bite us?"

"I think she'd rather go and brag to her friends." He undid the clasp holding the lantern shut. "As I think you want to."

"Just a little," she said as she held her arm out. "Ready?"

"Ready."

She wrapped her arm around his waist, about to fly both of them out, but he leaned down and stole a kiss before she could blink. She smiled around it and responded in kind. At the goblin city entrance, the impromptu parade halted as hundreds of labyrinth creatures stared at their cold king kissing the one mortal who'd thoroughly bested him.

Sarah almost broke into a fit of giggles when she heard Ludo speak.

"Sarah...queen?"

She broke the kiss for a moment and waved. "Maybe we should have just a little more privacy," she whispered. She raised her hand one more time, creating a burst of harmless sparks that spread out from her fingers and widened in circles around them, renewing themselves after every flash so that soon the entire city filled with light while the new queen laughed.

The faerie finally pushed her lantern open and flew out, heading not towards her sisters but instead zooming into the sky, stretching her wings for the first time in days and spiraling loops while leaving behind a glow of gold and pearl. She left the bright goblin city and disappeared into the darkness, trailing light into everything she passed before she circled back, swearing every other minute and giggling the rest.

****

The End


End file.
